Cheaper by the Dozen
by gidgetgirl
Summary: AU: Of the twelve Giles kids, 9 year old Faith is the little mastermind, but when her relationship with oldest sister, Buffy, falls to shaky ground, Faith stirs up trouble. Features little Anya, Andrew, Wes, Xander, Tara and more. COMPLETE!
1. Faith

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all of the Buffy characters, and 'Cheaper by the Dozen' is property of the Gilbreth family.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This isn't my usual cup of tea.  At all.  I rarely write AU stories where everyone is human, and I'm definitely not into basing fics off of movies (just look how long 'Bless the Child' lasted…), but I was insomniac girl until I gave into my muse, so here ya go.

In case you couldn't tell by the title, it's based off of 'Cheaper by the Dozen.'  If you've seen the recent movie, you'll recognize some of the roles.  I took liberties with some of the others, and the first person narration.  In reference to the original book, all of the kids have genius IQ's, hence a very not-nine-year-old narration from a nine year old narrator.

And, lastly, I'm still very sorry about my Throwback and Small Packages blocks.  I've written part of a Throwback chapter.  I'll try to finish it up and post soon, I promise.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter One    

"So that's the plan," I said, eyeing the others carefully.  "Everybody got it?"

            Wes pretended not to hear me, but the others nodded solemnly.  They understood the importance of a Giles family plan.  My great-grandma Gilbreth used to say that a family that plots together, stays together.  Okay, so maybe she didn't actually say that, but if she hadn't been so busy trying to survive my great-grandpa Gilbreth, she definitely would have.

            Tara stared at me, and I sighed.  "Problem?" I asked.  She shook her head, her blonde pigtails flying, and after a moment, crooked her finger at me.  I bent down to her level, and she whispered in my ear.

            "Excellent suggestion," I said.  Of all of us, Tara was the quietest.  That wasn't saying much since the rest of us were all pretty loud, but Tara was still a Giles through and through.  For a six year old, she sure knew how to plot.  

            "Tara thinks we should have a contingency plan in case we get caught."  I turned my attention to the youngest Giles family members in attendance.  "Think you guys can take the fall?" I asked them.

            Anya and Andrew looked at each other and then turned to me and nodded solemnly.  They were only four, so there was no way that Dad was going to get mad at them for a Giles-sized plan.

            "I don't know about this," Wes said.  He'd finally decided to stop pretending that he wasn't part of The Plan.

            I looked at the rest of my brothers and sisters.  "I think we can all agree that this Parker guy is a loser," I said.

            "He hates kids," Dawnie said, crossing her arms over her chest.

            "He's stupid," Xander said, putting his hands on his hips.

            "And he smells weird," Willow piped up.  Tara nodded, confirming her twin's words.

            We all turned to Wes.  

            "I think we can all agree that Buffy needs to ditch Parker, fast," I said, giving him a hard look.  

            "Agreed," he said finally.

            "And it's not like she's going to get rid of him on her own," I said.

            Finally, Wes grinned, showing some real Giles spirit.  "I'm in," he said.

            I grinned.  I knew he'd come around.  He always did.  If there was one thing I knew, it was my brothers and sisters.  Since there were eleven of them, it was a full time job.

            Buffy was the oldest, and if you ask me, the dumbest.  She could never decide whether she loved us or hated us, and she bossed us all around like she was God, just because she was twenty.  Mom and Dad thought she made a great baby-sitter (gag me), but ever since Parker, the model/actor, had moved into her apartment, we'd been seeing less and less of her.  She may have been a pain in the butt, but she was a Giles, and that meant she had me watching her back.  Hence, Project Parker.

            At seventeen, Riley thought he was way too cool to hang out with us younger kids, which was too bad.  I could have used his muscle power.  Riley thought he was the athlete in the family, but that's only because I was too young to play football.  

            Cordy was sixteen, and if Buffy was the dumbest of my brothers and sisters, Cordy was by far the most annoying.  She spent all of her time in the bathroom, complaining about wearing Buff's hand-me-down's.  Didn't she realize that I wore hand-me-hand-me-downs?  When it came to plans, Cordy hadn't been useful ever since she'd discovered makeup and boys.

            Mom and Dad thought they were done after Cordy, but boy, were they wrong.  They had one too many martini's at a family wedding, and nine months later, hello Wesley.  

            Then came Xander.  At eleven, he was definitely the resident goofball and the master of distractions.  Nobody could rig an exploding jello-balloon quite like Xander.

            Then, finally, we're to me.  That's right, I was lucky number six, and five minutes later, my twin sister Dawn was lucky number seven.  What can I say about me and Dawnie?  I'm the smart one, no joke, but Dawn, she's a genius, too.  All of Mom and Dad's kids are, or so standardized tests say.  I think there must have been a flaw in the system when it came to Buffy, Riley, and Cordy.  Geniuses?  Them?  I don't think so.

            At eight and a half, Lindsey was nine months younger than Dawnie and me, and as far as little siblings went, he was pretty darn useful.  Dad called him the arbitrator, because he was always making deals and getting all of us kids out of the trouble that Giles Kid Plans got us into.

            You'd think that eight kids was enough, right?  Not with my mom and dad, because a year and a half after Lindsey, mom had her second set of twins: Willow and Tara.  Of all of us kids, Willow was probably the smartest.  She definitely sounded more like a genius than the rest of us, using big words all the time.  Personally, I preferred four letter words, but not Willow.  She liked big old words like transubstantiation and verisimilitude.  Like I said before, Tara almost never said anything, but she and Willow were really close.  It's a twin thing.

            Speaking of twins, you guessed it.  Mom and Dad thought they were done after Willow and Tara.  They even _said_ they were done after Willow and Tara.  Dad even got a surgery to keep them from having more kids, but trust me, it's impossible to stop a Giles from doing anything, so four years ago, the ten of us kids got our last surprise: another set of fraternal twins, Anya and Andrew.

            Yup, twelve kids.  Like I said, looking after them all and keeping them all in line is a full time job, but someone's got to do it, and that someone is me, Faith Giles.

            "Ready?" I asked, sticking my hand out in front of me.

            "Ready," Dawnie said, slapping her hand on top of mine, a wicked grin on her face.  Dawn knew a fun time when she saw one, and Project Get Rid of Parker was going to be a fun time.

            "Big with the ready," Willow said, sticking her hand in, and Tara stuck hers in silently.

            "Ready, ready, ready!" Andrew said.  He had an awful lot of enthusiasm for such a little guy.  He sniffed and used the back of his hand to wipe his nose before sticking his hand in.  

            "Sex," Anya said, sticking her hand in.  In Anya-speak, that meant 'ready.'  Ever since Mom had told her about the birds and the bees the week before, four year old Anya had been absolutely obsessed with sex.

            "Ready, Sarge," Xander said, with a funny salute.

            I smacked him, but grinned back.  Lindsey put his hand in silently, and I knew I could count on him for damage control if we got caught.  We all turned to look at Wes.

            He sighed.  

            "We-esssss!" Dawnie whined, drawing out his name.  Dawnie was a first class whiner.  I crossed the fingers on my other hand behind my back, waiting.  For this plan to work, I needed Wes.

            Wes adjusted his glasses, sighed, and put his hand in with ours.  "Ready," he said, his eyes flashing.

            When it came down to it, he was really a Giles, just like the rest of us, glasses, books, and all.

            "Let's do this," I said, my voice low.

            And with that, we went to work.

TBC…the kids get rid of Parker, Faith sets her mind to finding a decent guy for Buffy, a neighborhood kid makes the mistake of picking on Tara, and Faith earns her title as the family rebel and mastermind.  

I've never written anything like this before, and I'm not sure if I'll be writing more of it.  Let me know what you think, and if you'd like to see more, REVIEW!


	2. Parker

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all the characters, the Gilbreths CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the response first chapter.  As long as that many of you want to read, of course I'll update.  For the person who asked, I'm working on a picture… you can see Faith, Xander, Tara, and Willow in the actually Cheaper by the Dozen pic.  I'll see what I can do about the others.

And for the person who asked, here are the kids and their ages:

Buffy: oldest, mommy complex 20

Riley: football player 17

Cordelia: makeup obsessed 16

Wesley: book worm 13

Xander: goofball 11

Dawn: twin whiner 9

Faith: twin mastermind 9

Lindsey: negotiator 8

Willow: twin, genius 6

Tara: twin, quiet 6

Anya: sex obsessed 4

Andrew: 4

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Two

            As soon as their car pulled up, I sauntered toward it.  Parker and Buffy got out of the car, and casually, I took another step toward them.

            "Hold up there, little girl," Parker said, holding his hands out in front of his body.  "That's close enough."  He smiled at me, a big toothy smile, like I didn't know he had the IQ of a ferret and the personality of an anti-social weasel.  Honestly, who did this guy think he was dealing with?  "There's no reason to touch the baby," Parker continued, stroking his mustang lovingly.  

            Buffy looked down at me and smiled a forced smile.  "Come on, Faith," she said, "don't touch Parker's car."  

            Dawnie looked over at me and grinned.  We'd show them car.

            Buffy recognized the look.  After all, she was a Giles, so she wasn't entirely stupid, unlike certain model/actor boyfriends I could think of.  "Dad," she said quickly, "tell them not to touch the car."  She shot him a pained look.  Always the martyr.  Forget the fact that she hadn't been home in weeks.  Forget the fact that she didn't know about the way the kids in the neighborhood teased Wesley, or about the way they'd split Willow and Tara up at school by putting them in different classrooms.  Forget that everyone loved her more than me, just because she was the oldest, even though I was the one who took care of everyone else.  Forget all of that, because poor Buffy, the oldest, had the whole Giles world on her shoulder, just because she had to babysit.

            She needed a reminder about what this family was all about, and looking at the other kids, I knew they were ready to give her one.

            My dad took off his glasses and cleaned them, not that they were dirty.  He looked hard, first at Dawnie and Xander, and then at me.  "Faith Giles," he said simply, in warning.  I was the only one in the entire family who ever got called by my first and last name.  Go figure.

            "We won't touch the car," I said.  "It'll stay five by five."  I smiled at Parker.  The car would be fine.  Parker, on the other hand…

            "Five by five?" he asked.  Buffy knew what I meant, but she didn't explain.  It was a family expression, from way back before Dawnie and me, when there'd just been five kids.  Mom and Dad would load them up in the truck, and if everyone was there and in one piece, things were five by five.  Even after Dawnie and I were born, things were still five by five, because seven by seven didn't sound quite right, and neither did twelve by twelve.

            "What my sister means to say," Lindsey said smoothly, his face mock serious, "is that if the car stays outside the perimeter of the yard, we will not apply any undo force or unnecessary sanctions."  

            Parker looked at Buffy and raised an eyebrow.  He definitely didn't speak fluent Lindsey.

            I gave Anya the signal, and she and Andrew rushed forward.  "Hi," Andrew said, sniffing.  "Do you remember me?  We can play star fleet commander and I can wear your pants."  He clung to Parker's knee, and Parker, smile still firmly in place, looked down at him, a pained expression in his eyes.  

            That boy didn't know the meaning of the word pain.  Yet.

While Andrew clamored all over Parker, Anya looked back at me and winked, and a second later, she spoke up loudly.  "Does Buffy give you the orgasm?" she asked Parker.  For a four year old, she had a great sense of timing.

            Buffy narrowed her eyes at Anya.

            "Anya!" Dad said, shocked.  "That's hardly appropriate."  Then he looked at Buffy out of the side of his eyes, clearly wondering if Buffy and Parker were sexing it up yet.

            "Well," I said, smirking at my sister before turning back to Parker, "does she?"

            "Faith Giles…" my dad said warningly.

            I crossed my arms over my chest and ignored him.  When Anya said it, she got Anya-ed, but I got Faith Giles-ed.  It figured.

            Buffy bent down to my level, with this really tense, sincere look in her eyes.  "Faith," she said, "I know this move has been hard for you, and I'm here for you," she looked around at the others.  "All of you, but Parker's a part of my life now, and I need for you all to treat him with kindness and respect."

            Parker put his hand on her shoulder and whispered something in her ear.

            Buffy nodded.  "That means no setting Parker on fire," Buffy said firmly, narrowing her eyes at me.

            I scuffed my foot into the ground.  "It was just his pants," I said, smiling innocently at them both.  You should have seen that wuss last time he came to visit when Lindsey, Dawnie, and I set his pants on fire.  It was classic, one of my top ten best feats ever, I think, and thanks to Lindsey's smooth talking and the fact that Mom and Dad didn't like Parker any better than us kids did, we'd only been grounded for a week.  It had so been worth it.

            Riley pulled his car up behind Parker's, and some interesting ideas involving two cars, something sharp and pointy, and a dim-witted model/actor ran through my head.  The possibilities were endless.  Cordy hopped out of Riley's car, her dark hair perfectly in place and a gigantic smile on her perfectly made up face.  Gag me.  Riley followed her, no expression on his face.  Riley only had two real facial expressions: happy and moody/concerned, and since we'd moved, we'd mostly been seeing the moody part.

            "I'm in love," Cordy said, oblivious to the fact that Parker was standing right there.  

            "Really?" Buffy asked, rolling her eyes.  "Who with this time?"

            "The most incredible bit of salty goodness, who just happens to live just down the street," Cordy said in a dreamy voice.

            Dad's brow wrinkled.  "Isn't he a bit old for you?" he asked, taking off his glasses and cleaning them again.

            As much as I hated to admit it, if Cordy was talking about who I thought she was talking about, she had much better taste than Buffy.  In fact, next to Spike, my awesome badass soccer coach and a man after my own heart, Angel was one of the nicest guys I'd met in this town, even if he had even fewer facial expressions than Riley.  Why couldn't Buffy date someone like him?

              As Cordy babbled on about Angel, I turned my attention back to the plan.  Parker watched me, all twitchy like.

            Right on cue, Andrew blew his nose on Parker's pant leg, and I bit back a grin.

            Parker looked down, disgusted.

            "Parker doesn't give Buffy the orgasm," Anya informed Riley, her little pig tails bouncing.  "I think he's too small."  I couldn't have said it better myself.  That kid was a prodigy.

             Parker sputtered. 

            I smiled at Dawnie and Xander.  "Let the games begin," I whispered.

            Parker didn't hear me.  He was _so in over his head._

TBC… at this point, Angel and Spike are both possible love interests for Buffy, and they'll both have major roles in the story.  Coming up, Parker gets what he deserves, Faith at soccer practice with badass coach Spike, and more of all the kiddos.

Let me know who you want to see more of, what's working for you, and what's not.

REVIEW!


	3. He Did it Himself

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them, not me.  

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Like I said before, I don't know whether this will be Spuffy or B/A… honestly.  I'm not particularly attached to either ship, and it really depends on how it just falls together.  For now, I hope you guys will read and enjoy.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Three

            I can usually tell just by looking at someone how long it should take for me to drive them over the edge.  It's a gift.  With the model/actor, I could tell it wasn't going to take that much.  A small annoyance here, some scar tissue there, and boom, he'd be out of our lives, _and Buffy's, in no time.  _

            Anya was on sex talk duty, not that that was a stretch.  My mom thought children deserved to know the truth whenever they asked about It.  The more Anya knew, the more questions she had, and they weren't normal questions, either.  They were totally Giles kid questions.

            "Well, if you're not small, Single Syllable Man," she said, her small hands on her hips, "how big are you?  Have you ever had sex in a pool?  What about in jello?"  She pointed her index finger at Parker, and he glanced away, disturbed.  "Have you ever had sex in jello?" Anya demanded seriously.  

            "Green jello?" Andrew asked, and right on cue, he stuffed his finger in his nose practically up to the elbow, and Parker watched in slow motion with a horrified expression on his face, as Andrew held it up to him.

            "For you," he said sweetly.

            "Mom!"  Buffy's voice was loud and panicked.  Mom hurried in and shoo-ed Andrew and Anya, the four year old wonder twins, away from Parker.  

Buffy, in all her older sister glory, turned to glare at me.  She knew me well enough to know exactly what was going on, but the brilliant-beyond-brilliant part of the whole thing was that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.  Power was a beautiful thing, especially when I had it, and she didn't.

I kept a perfectly straight face, and with a slight wave of my hand, I sent Willow and Tara in to do their part.

            Tara went to stand right in front of Parker, and for the longest time, she didn't say a word.  She just stared at him, all serious like.

            "Uh, hello?" Parker said.  Tara stared at him, her expression never changing.

            Buffy knelt down to her level.  "Tara, sweetie, can you say hi to my friend Parker?"

            "Special friend," I coughed into my hand, and the others picked it up right away.

            "Special friend," Lindsey coughed.

            Xander sneezed.  "Ahhh…ahhhh…ahhh…special friend."

            Tara, of course, said nothing.  She just stared up at Parker, her eyes wide and not even a hint of a smile on her face.  It was starting to freak him out.

            Buffy stroked a single hand over Tara's hair and looked up at Parker.  "She's shy," she said unnecessarily.  Buffy didn't ever yell at Tara.  No one did.  She never got Tara Giles-ed either.  Lucky Tara.

            While Buffy was distracted, Willow tugged on the bottom of Parker's pants.      

"Psssstt…" she whispered.

He looked down at her.

She tugged on his pant leg again and crooked her finger at him.  She smiled, and with her red hair in two long pigtails, she looked completely innocent.  Awkwardly, Parker bent down, careful not to touch her or get any closer to the rest of us.

"Your epidermis is exposed," Willow whispered, her little eyes wide and her voice very serious.  Xander chuckled.

"That's my Will," he said softly under his breath.  

Parker stiffened, and though he tried to look calm, he was definitely a little weirded out.  I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out what exactly his epidermis was.  Very conspicuously and trying to be very casual about it all, he looked down at his crotch.

"That's where your penis lives," Anya informed him blithely, from all the way across the room.

"I have one too!" Andrew chimed in.  "Wanna see?"

"No!" Mom and Buffy said together.

"Can I do your nails?" Dawn chimed in, right on time.  "Pleeeeeeaaaaaaase?" she drew the word out.  

My twin was definitely the Gold Medal Champion of Whining.

"My nails?" Parker asked, trying his best to ignore Anya, who was now jumping up and down on the other side of the room, pointing to Parker's crotch, and singing some song that only she could understand.  "Buffy," Parker's voice was bordering on panicked.  "Why does the brown-haired one want to do my nails?"  Buffy, busy making sure Andrew didn't take off his pants, barely heard him.

Parker gave Dawn a big toothy grin.  "You're like what, six?"

"Nine," Dawn told him through gritted teeth.  She stuck out her lower lip in a pout.  "I could make your toe nails really pretty.  I wouldn't hurt anything."  She batted her eyelashes at him.  "I promise."

If he hadn't had the IQ of a garbage disposal, he would have recognized her words as a lie.

Tara, her timing impeccable, spoke up.  "I…I…I'd like to play nails, too," she whispered quietly.  She shot Buffy a pathetic smile, and Buffy, content that Andrew wasn't about to start streaking, hugged Tara and beamed up at her boy toy.

"Tara says she wants to paint your nails, too," Willow told him.  "That means she likes you."

"No," Parker said flatly.

Right on cue, Willow's face crumbled, and at the exact same time, Tara managed a small sniffle.

Buffy gave each of them a hug.  "Come on, Parker," she said, standing up and draping her hands around his neck.  "Let them paint you're nails.  I'll take it off tonight."

Gag me.  I so didn't want to know how she was planning on taking it off.

Parker sighed.  "Fine," he said, before looking back at Buffy.  "But they don't touch the face."

            Buffy traced her hand along his jaw and leaned in to kiss him.  

"Aaaaah….aaaaah….aaaaaah…special friends!" Xander, Lindsey, Dawn, and I all sneezed at the same time.

Willow and Tara scrambled off to get the fingernail polish, the nail clippers, the superglue, the duct tape, the permanent markers, and the wax.  I turned my attention to Wesley.

"Is the dye ready yet?" I whispered.

Slyly, he slipped it into my hand.

"I increased its potency," he whispered back, "and just for fun, I added a tiny bit of a chromium diphospho…" he paused for a moment, got that I had no idea what he was talking about, and sighed.  "A powerful itching powder."

"Excuse me, Buffy," he said louder.  "I have some figures I'd like for you to look over.  I've been doing a bit of market analysis and…"

Before Buffy knew it, she was following Wesley out of the room.  I grinned.  That booksmart brother of mine was good for some things, and distraction was definitely one of them.

Mom took one look at us, and smiled.  "I'd better go check on dinner," she said. Mom didn't like Buffy's boyfriend any better than the rest of us did.  She didn't fool me for a second.  She knew that once she was out of the room, Parker was fair game.

"You'll love this pedicure, Parker," Dawnie promised, pushing him into a chair and tearing off his shoes.

"I'll do your legs," Willow said, running back into the room.

"My legs?" Parker squeaked.  "Uh…Joyce?"

My mom was already out of the room.  She was one smart lady, even if she did love Buffy best.

Casually, I walked over to the chair and sat down on the arm.  "You look pretty good for thirty-five," I told Parker, my eyes wide.

He did a double take and forgot all about what my sisters were doing to his legs.

"Thirty-five?!" he shrieked.

"Buffy said she was dating an older man," Dawnie filled in, knowing exactly where I was going.  "You've aged well."

"Yeah. 'Cept for the wrinkly things next to your eyes," Xander volunteered helpfully.

"Faith!" Lindsey said sharply.  "What are you doing with Mom's face cream?  You know she pays to have that imported from France."

            I jumped and made sure Parker saw me giving Lindsey my best guilty look.  "I wasn't going to use it," I said.  I sat it down on the arm of the chair.  

            With a wink in my direction, Lindsey handed Parker a piece of paper.

            "What's this?" Parker asked.

            "Just a basic waiver of liability," Lindsey replied.  "Sign by the X."

            Mystified, Parker did as he was told, and a moment later, the fun really began.

            Looking at Parker a few minutes later, I sighed.  "This has truly been one of my greatest works of art," I said.

            All together, my brothers and sisters cleared their throats.

            "One of our greatest works of art," I corrected myself.  

            "Can we take the tape off of his mouth?" Dawnie asked.  "Pleeeeeaaaase?"

            With a flourish, I gestured toward him.  "You do the honors," I said.   

"AAAAAAAAAGGGGAAAAAAUUUUUUUUU!"

 That model/actor sure could scream.  Buffy made it into the room first, but Mom and Dad were right on her heels.  "What did you do to him?" Buffy asked, furious.

            I glanced at Parker.  His face, thanks to the "face cream" he'd borrowed before we'd duct taped him down, was a nice shade of bright purple, he had some pretty interesting messages drawn on his feet, his hands were superglued to the crotch of his pants, and wax had been spread up and down his left leg.

            "We didn't do anything," I said, wide eyed.  "He did it himself," Dawnie, Willow, Tara, Xander, and Lindsey chorused with me.  

            As my parents and Buffy stared in horror at the big purple, screaming mess that had been Parker, every few seconds, one of my little siblings would lean over and pull off some of the wax on Parker's leg and Parker would scream bloody murder, his hands still firmly glued to the crotch of his pants.

            "You know," Willow said seriously, "you're going to have to wax the other one if you have a thing for being symmetrical."

            I couldn't have said it better myself.

            Anya pointed at Parker's crotch and delivered the final line.  "Are you making yourself happy?" she asked.  "Isn't Buffy supposed to give you the happy?"

            I couldn't have said that any better myself either.

            Buffy let out a frustrated scream, Parker scrambled out the door, wax still dripping from his legs, and the sound of my dad's voice filled the room.

            "FAITH GILES!"

TBC… up next, Angel and Spike, and at reader request, Darla, as the adventures of Faith Giles and her many siblings continue.

PLEASE REVIEW!


	4. Sodding Hell

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the characters, you know who owns the movie and the book.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've put pics of all of the kids up on my website, so if you're bored after you read and review, use the link in my profile and check it out.   

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Four

            Within seconds of Dad bellowing my name, all us younger kids were lined up, from tallest to shortest, and Dad had gone into total British Guy Lecture mode.  I tried to keep the smile off my face.

            "You dyed his face an absurdly bright shade of blue."  Dad's statement hung in the air, and next to me, I could practically feel Dawnie trying not to laugh.  "You waxed his left leg."  

            Way down at the end of the line, I heard Andrew sniffle.  

            "You glued his hands to his _crotch_!"

            Xander lost it first, and the second she heard him laughing, Dawnie burst into giggles.  I wasn't far behind them, and once I started laughing, all the kids started laughing.

            "This isn't …"  Dad took his glasses off and cleaned them.  "All right," he admitted with a sigh.  "This is rather funny."

            Mom started giggling.

            "You guys!" Buffy said, stamping her foot, her eyes flashing.

            "Funny," Dad amended, "but _wrong_." 

            Mom struggled to keep a straight face.  "Very unkind of you children," she said, dissolving into laughter again.

            "For the record, we still maintain he did it to himself," Lindsey said, laughter dancing in his eyes.

            Buffy glared at us.  "This isn't funny, kids," she said, like she wasn't even one of us kids anymore, just because she was twenty.  "This is my life you're playing with here.  That was my boyfriend, a man I care about, and when you treat him like this, you're really treating me just as badly."  Her voice caught in her throat.  "Not that you care," she added.

            Cry me a river, B, I thought, but at the same time, my stomach clenched a little.  Buffy the Oldest, Buffy the Perfect Daughter didn't even realize that I was doing this for her own good.  Did she think I didn't want her to be happy, just because life had sucked for me ever since we'd moved to this town?  She didn't understand me at all.  

            At Buffy's words, Dad sobered up.  "Faith," he said lowly.

            Of course, I thought.  Buffy brings on her Poor Me Speech, and immediately, Dad's ready to send me to the slaughter.  Was there any trouble telling who the black sheep of this family was?

            "Yes?" I replied, arching my eyebrow.  As Lindsey would say, he had no solid proof against me.

            He gave me a hard look and then turned to the rest of the kids.  "Whose idea was this?" he asked, trying to get some proof.  As if any of my brothers or sisters would turn me in.  

            Without hesitation, Anya spoke up.  "Sex me!" she exclaimed brightly, stepping forward and taking the blame.

            "Oh dear…" my father cut himself off and took his glasses off to clean them again.  Anya elbowed Andrew in the waist, and Andrew stepped forward, too.

            "It was my idea, too…and stuff," he said hesitantly.  Dad looked at the two of them for a second, and Andrew began to writhe, bouncing back and forth from foot to foot.

            "I think Andrew has to go," I volunteered sweetly.  Buffy glared daggers at me.

            Mom and Dad looked at each other and then turned back to us.  "This brilliant little endeavor just cost all of you this weekend," Dad said.  "You'll help me at the shop or your mother with the house or the gallery."

            Mom turned to smile at me.  "And Faith, dear," she said, "you'll be helping Buffy with whatever she needs."

            Buffy shot me a triumphant look, and I groaned inwardly.  Outwardly, my expression never changed.  A Giles never showed weakness.

            "A whole weeeeeeekeeeeennnnd?" Dawn asked, drawing the word out into about fifteen syllables.

            "It's not like we were liable," Lindsey pointed out.  "He signed the release form.  How about we work Saturday and Sunday we have family time, with the entire family?"  On the word entire, Lindsey glanced slyly at Buffy.  "There are child labor laws in this country, and I'd hate to think that…"

            Dad cut him off.  "Deal," he said.

            "Can I go to the bathroom?" Andrew asked, jumping up and down and grabbing the front of his pants.  "Cause I really really really really REAAAALLLLLY have to go now…"

            Jumping around like that with his hand on his pants, he kind of looked like Parker.

            "Go ahead," I told him, and he made a beeline for the bathroom.

            Mom and Dad went back into the kitchen to salvage dinner, and Buffy turned to flounce out.  Before she made it even a couple of steps, Tara and Willow were standing in front of her, staring at her silently.

            "It's not going to work on me," she said, "I know all your tricky…tricky…" Buffy fumbled for the right word.

            "Maneuvers?" Willow suggested.  "Ploys?  Manipulations? Acts of passive aggression?"

            Tara stared at Buffy.

            "No," Buffy said.  "Tricks."

            "Tricky tricks?" Xander asked, flipping into a goofy headstand.  "Sounds kinda crazy, Buffster."

            Tara stared at Buffy and held one hand up to her.  "Stay," she whispered.  "Please."

            For Buffy, that was all it took.  Tara didn't talk very much, but when she used words, she used them wisely.

            "Fine," Buffy said, glancing briefly at me.  My stomach churned a little, and I knew that Buffy might not be mad at anyone else, but she was still mad at me.  Forget the fact that I was just trying to keep this family together.  Every family had a bad child, and most families the size of ours had two.  As far as Buffy was concerned, I was both of them.

            Quietly, Tara hugged Buffy, and before I knew it, the rest of the kids were piling on, and everyone was laughing.  This was how it was supposed to be, how it was in the good old days, but with the way Buffy had looked at me burned into my memory, I couldn't bring myself to join in, so I just crept upstairs and made plans of my own.  Tara had been even more quiet than usual lately, and I had the feeling that some of the neighborhood kids were giving her a hard time.  We'd see about that.  No one messed with a Giles kid, not on my watch.

            My hand was already on the doorknob to our room when I heard a voice behind me.  "Hey Faith," Lindsey said.  "Should we keep a sample of his handwriting, you know, for the files?"

            "Sounds good, Lindsey," I said, and without saying a word, he gave me a hug.  Sometimes I thought he understood me better than the others, except for Dawnie, and that was a twin thing.

            "So did the hidden camera pick it all up?" I asked, a wicked smile returning to my face.

            Lindsey nodded, a huge grin on his face.  "We'll be enjoying that memory for many years to come," he said.

            Sitting there, I took stock of the situation.  Parker was gone, for good, and my Saturday belonged to Buffy.  I so didn't even know what Princess Buff was going to have me do, but at least I knew that Mom and Dad would never make me miss soccer practice just on account of some mild boyfriend torture.

            And when Buffy picked me up from practice, I could see what she thought of Spike.

            "Sodding hell," I said under my breath, trying to sound just like him.  "This is going to be great."

TBC… the next chapter's the Spike chapter, with a cameo by Dru, and then the next chapter, the Giles kids ban together to protect Tara, and Angel enters the scene.

PLEASE REVIEW!


	5. Condom Man

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns, Gilbreths own, Movie people own… in short, I don't own anyone that appears in this fic.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those of you continuing to ask whether this will be Spuffy or B/A, let me reiterate, I do NOT know.  I'm not holding out on you.  I don't preplan the things I write… I just write them and see how they turn out.  Regardless, the ship, whichever form it takes, will never be at the center of this fic.  It will remain in Faith's POV, and that means that, unless Faith is spying (and yeah, that'll happen), there won't be much one on one time shown for either ship.

You'll get the first glance at any possibly Buffy/Spike vibes in this chapter and possibly the next one.  We'll see how they get along and if my muse is singing, and I'll be taking it from there.  Regardless, the focus will be on the kids, and their relationships, including their relationship to Buffy and to the prospective boyfriends.  

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Five

            My alarm went off, but I snuggled back down under my covers anyway.  One bed over, Dawnie did the same thing.  

            "Mmmmvenshmp," she mumbled.

            "Yeah," I said, yawning and pulling my pillow to my side.

            "Condoms," a little voice piped up right next to my ear.

            "Spaceships," another voice said.

            "Spaceship condoms," the two little voices said together.  

            I groaned and opened one eye.  Anya and Andrew were standing there, staring at me.  

            "Buffy's downstairs talking to Mommy because she doesn't want you two to go to your soccer game today, and Lindsey tricked Wes into signing a form that legally changed his name to Girly-Man, and Cordy's been in the bathroom all morning and I have to go." Andrew said, all in one breath.

            "Riley has condoms," Anya piped up.  "We saw them upstairs.  That means he's giving someone the orgasm, only Mommy and Daddy didn't know about it, until Andrew told them about the spaceship condoms, and now Daddy and Riley are having a talk."  Anya put a tough expression on her little face.  "Man to man," she grunted seriously.

            I sat up in bed and my mind ran quickly through the facts.  Cordy was hogging the bathroom, Riley was being a teenage guy with condoms, Anya and Andrew were somehow convinced that condoms and spaceships were somehow tied together, Wesley had been Lindsey-ed, and…

            I opened my eyes a little bit wider.  "Did you say B was downstairs talking to Mom?" I asked.

            Two little blond-ish heads nodded seriously.  I launched a pillow at Dawn.  "Get up," I told her.  She mumbled something under her breath.  "Dawnie, if we don't get down there quickly, Buffy will put her oldest child angelic mojo on Mom, and we won't be going to soccer today, which means no game, no post-game pizza, more work, and no Spike."

            As soon as Spike's name left my mouth, Dawn bolted out of bed.  I turned to Anya and Andrew.  "Andrew, go tell Mom Cordy is hogging the bathroom, and if you can, distract her until Dawnie and I get down there."  I paused for a moment as I threw my soccer jersey over my head.  "Ani," I said, using my special nickname for Anya.  "See if you can't get a hold of one of Riley's condoms."  

            You never knew when one of those things would come in handy.

            With a wicked grin, my littlest sister pulled something out of her pocket and held it up for me to see.  "It's almost as good as a quarter," she told me seriously.  Andrew pulled a condom out of his pocket, pulled it over his fist and ran out of the room, sniffling and yelling at the top of his lungs.

            "CONDOM MAN!!!"

            Anya sighed a very adult sigh.  "Boys," she said, shaking her head.

            Half an hour later, I was sharing the passenger seat of Buffy's car with Dawnie, and Tara, Willow, Wesley, and Lindsey were crammed into the back.

            "As soon as the game is over," Buffy said sternly, "you kids are making with the grounded."

            Why did she have to call us kids?  Did she think she was a grown up or something?  She was still just Buffy, my oldest sister, my perfect sister.  She wasn't Mom.  

            "I still maintain there might be some forms of recourse," Lindsey started, but Wesley cut him off with a clearing of his throat.  Of all of us, Wes was the most like Dad, I think.  He was more British than the rest of us, and he did a lot more throat clearing and glasses wearing.

            "Do you have something in your throat, Girly-Man?" Lindsey asked politely.  I stifled a giggle.

            "Lindsey," Buffy warned half-heartedly from the driver's seat as she pulled into the parking lot in front of the field.  Buffy liked to think she was above it all, but once upon a time, she'd teased Wes, argued with Dawnie and me and Cordy, and been tricked by Lindsey, just like everyone else.

            "He changed his name to Girly-Man.  Don't blame me.  It was a legal name change," Lindsey said.  "I have the forms to back it up."

            Wes cleared his throat again, took his glasses off, and cleaned them on his t-shirt.  "What if we legally change my name instead," I suggested.  I liked teasing all my siblings just as much as the next person, but Wes always tried to take care of me, even though I didn't need it, so I wasn't about to let him choke on his own throat-clearing noises.

            "What would you change it to?" Buffy asked dryly.

            Buffy, I thought.  It was even on the tip of my tongue to say it, but I didn't.  "Bite Me," I said.

            Buffy narrowed her eyes at me.  

            "I'd change my name to Bite Me," I clarified.  "Bite Me Giles has a nice ring to it."

            Without another word, I opened the car door and stepped out.  Mom had sided with Dawnie and me, thanks to Lindsey's smooth talking, Buffy had somehow ended up having to take us all to the game, me to play, Dawn to 'play,' and the others just to watch.  Mom had her hands full at home with Andrew and Anya, who hadn't stopped playing Condom Man all morning.  Cordy was _still_ in the bathroom, Dad and Riley were still having the talk, and Xander, in true Xander style, was still in bed.

            "Oh," a pleasant speaking voice with a not-so-pleasant undertone said as someone got out of the car next to me.  "You're here."

            "And so are you," I returned, giving Darla O'Connor a measuring look.  She played on my soccer team, with Dawnie and me, and she was a bitch.  Faith Giles wasn't supposed to say that word, but I figured if the name change went through, Bite Me Giles might be able to get away with it.

            "Hi Darla," Dawn said, giving her a smile.  "Is Spike here yet?"

            "Spike?" Buffy asked wryly.

            "Our coach," Darla, Dawn, and I answered at once.

            "Spike?" Buffy asked again, incredulously.

            "Yes, luv?" a British voice said behind her.

            Buffy turned around, still way into big sister mode, but when she looked at Spike, the I'm-the-oldest-and-the-best expression fell right off her face.

            Wordlessly, Tara and Willow got out of the car, and they went to stand on either side of Buffy.

            "This your lot?" Spike asked Buffy speculatively.  "The Little Bit and my little enforcer and…" Spike looked at my brothers and sisters.  "And the rest," he finished.  Then he qualified his statement.  "Except her," he said, gesturing to Darla.  Darla narrowed her eyes at him.

            "Don't call me a her, boy," she said.  

            Darla was just about the bossiest girl I knew.  We'd see what Bite Me Giles had to say about that…

            "Yup," Buffy said, a smile coming onto her face.  "They're mine.  I mean, not actually mine, because I'm not…" she trailed off.

            "She's our sister," Dawn said, rolling her eyes.  "You've met Tara, Willow, Lindsey, and Wes before, Spike.  This is Buffy."

            Spike looked at her, and his eyes lingered on her face in a way I wasn't so sure I liked.

            "You haven't seen her because she's never come to a game before," I interjected.  "Or a practice."  I tilted my head at Buffy and gave her a half smile.  "Or anything," I added pointedly.

            Spike grinned at me.  "Save it for the field, little luv," he said.  He looked at Darla, Dawn, and me.  "You three get everyone started warming up," he said.  "And tell Drusilla I said to stop picking those flowers and actually pass with the rest of you lot this time."

            Sometimes, I felt like everyone on our team except me had a name that began with the letter D.

            As I headed off in the opposite direction, I let out a powerful yell.  "Bloody hell, Spike!" I yelled as we took off running, just for the heck of it.

            "Language," he yelled back, grinning.  "Bloody hell, I love that kid," he muttered under his breath, but I still heard him, and so did Buffy.  "Don't look so shocked, pet," I heard him say to Buffy.  

            Buffy looked like she couldn't decide whether to yell at him for teaching me curse words or laugh.

            Silently, Tara held her arms up to Spike, and wordlessly, he swooped her up and put her on his shoulders.  

            I grabbed a soccer ball and started kicking it back and forth with Dawnie, watching Buffy and Spike out of the corner of my eye.  He inched towards her, Tara still on his shoulders, and whispered something into her ear.  She glared at him.

            Why was my sister so bloody stupid?  I'd practically handed her the best guy in the universe, and she'd decided to hate him, even though anyone with half a brain could tell she really didn't.  Purposefully, I kicked the ball towards them, and it hit Buffy square in the side of the head.

            Spike narrowed his eyes at me.

            I looked back at him innocently, and he tried not to laugh.

            "Sorry, B," I said, running over to get the ball.  "I guess sometimes I don't know my own strength."  

            "I think my offer is more than fair," I heard Lindsey say to Wes.

            "What offer?" I asked.

            "I'm offering him the chance to legally change his name to Bloody Hell," Lindsey said.  "It's a step up from Girly-man."

            "Bloody hell?" Wesley asked, his voice low.

            "Gory Hades," Willow said with a grin, putting 'bloody hell' into Willow-ese.

"Bloody hell," Tara whispered from on top of Spike's shoulders.

            Buffy kept right on glaring at Spike.  "This is all your fault," she said.

            Spike just grinned at her, and I could see that it was driving Buffy nuts.  "Most things are," he replied.

            Bloody hell.  I loved that guy.

TBC… more Buffy/Spike interaction, Faith, Darla, Dru, and Dawn playing soccer…

PLEASE REVIEW!


	6. Bite Me Giles

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns, 20th Century Fox owns, and the Gilbreths own.  I do not.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for all of the encouragement.  I'm glad some of you went to see the movie and thought of the fic.  The chances of Spuffy are looking decent at this point, but I'm not making any promises until I know for sure it's what the characters want, which means I'll find out about the same time you all will.

Also, I know everyone will miss Anya and Andrew this chapter, but they'll be back soon, I promise.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Six

            Next to me, Dawn sighed a very girly sigh.  I swear, she was about four seconds away from getting all space cadet on me and going to pick flowers with Dru.  I raised an eyebrow at her.

            "Look at Spike," she said in a dreamy voice.  "He's so Spike-y.  With the Spike-y-ness…"  She trailed off, a goofy smile on her face.

            I saw the soccer ball a microsecond before it hit Dawn's head and moved as quickly as I could to catch it.

            "Sorry," Darla drawled, coming over.  Her blonde ponytail waggled as she walked.  "It slipped."  

            Not as sorry as you're going to be, I thought.  She should have known better.  Messing with any of the Giles kids was a bad idea.  Messing with me was a worse idea.  Messing with one of my siblings while I was there was the worst idea ever.

            Dawn narrowed her eyes at Darla.  I could sense a whine coming on.

            Darla cut her off.  "Darling girl," she said, and I just about gagged.  Who talked like that?

            "I'll show you darling girl," I told her, and I was about to make good on my threat when all three of us were momentarily distracted.

            "STOP CALLING ME THAT!"  

            Darla, Dawn, and I all turned to face Wesley.  My older brother looked a little bit flustered.  Lindsey was standing in front of him, poker face in place.  I bit down on my lips to keep from smiling.

            "My name is _not_ Bloody Hell," Wes said through gritted teeth.

            "Very well," Lindsey replied.  "Girly-Man it is.  I thought perhaps we could reach a mutually beneficent compromise, but clearly that isn't going to happen.  Consider the offer rescinded."  Lindsey paused just long enough for Wes to come to the verge of exploding again.  "Girly-Man," he added, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

            Dawn clicked her tongue.  "Girly-Man should have taken the deal," she said.  "But it could be worse.  I mean, at least his name isn't Spaceship Condoms Giles."

            Darla rolled her eyes.  "You guys are so weird," she said.

            I took a step toward her, and she took one toward me.

            "How about we break up this love fest, eh luvs?" I looked up at Spike.  Tara was still sitting on his shoulders.  When Darla looked up at her, Tara blushed, and she looked quickly away.

            Darla smiled a deathly smile at Spike.  "Whatever you say," she said, shrugging delicately.  You would have thought she was the queen of England or something.  I narrowed my eyes at her and wondered what she'd look like if we gave her the Parker treatment.

            "Darla, take another few warm up kicks.  Dawn…" Spike trailed off.  Dawnie wasn't exactly known for her athletic prowess.  "You do the same," Spike finished finally.  "And will someone please tell Drusilla to stop spinning around in circles and get her mind on soccer."

            "What about me?" I asked, giving him a measuring look.  Coach Spike wasn't an idiot, and he knew exactly how much I wanted to duct tape Darla to the goal post.

            "Well, Fire Bit," Spike said, and I tried not to grin as he called me by a nickname, "you and I are going to have a little talk."

            As Darla and Dawn scrambled off to finish warm-ups, I batted my eyelashes at him.  "Whatever about?" I asked innocently.__

He tried to narrow his eyes at me, but ended up laughing.  "I can see inside that little calculating mind of yours," he said, trying not to smile as much as he was.  "I don't want to see my star player suspended for use of unnecessary force."  He paused.  "Again."

            "_Faith," Buffy, eavesdropping, dragged out my name.  She was almost as good at whining as Dawnie was, only now, she was trying to sound like Mom or Dad.  I was lucky she hadn't said Faith Giles.  "You are under no circumstances to hit that girl.  Or slide-tackle her, or tape her to anything, or, or, or…"_

            "Do anything unseemly, aggressive, or otherwise prohibited?" Willow suggested.

            "Make her change her name?" Wes grumbled.

            "I gave you every opportunity…" Lindsey started to say.

            Tara said nothing.  She sat on Spike's shoulders and touched a gentle hand to the side of his face, and then she smiled sweetly at me.  Tara was on my side.  

             "Play hard, but play fair, bit," Spike said, completely ignoring everyone else.  He glanced at Buffy and then looked down at me and winked.  "Wouldn't want big sister to get her panties in a twist, now would we?"

            Buffy made a huffing sound, and I looked Spike straight in the eye.  "I'm sure you'd like untwisting them," I told him, just loudly enough for Buffy to hear.

            Spike burst out laughing, and Buffy glared at me.

"I believe that was an innuendo," Willow said, "though I might have to ask Anya to be sure."

"Anya?" Spike asked.

"My littlest sister," I said.

Spike nodded.  "The one who asked me about whip cream?" Spike asked, his eyes on Buffy.

I smiled wickedly at Buffy.  "I think so," I said innocently.  "Unless, of course, that was Buffy…"

Spike kept a straight face and arched one eyebrow at Buffy.  She sputtered at me.  "Faith Giles," she said, pointing her index finger at me.

Oooooo, I thought.  She's pointing at me.  Oh no!  Not the pointy finger of doom.  I'm soooooo scared.  

"Bite Me," I told her.  I thought Buffy was going to explode.  "It's my new name, remember?  Not Faith.  Bite Me."

Without saying another word, I stalked off, leaving the rest of them behind me.

"The pretty lady isn't happy," Dru told me as soon as I ran over to the rest of the group.

"What pretty lady?" I asked, trying not to roll my eyes.

"Young and old," Dru replied solemnly.

What the hell was she talking about?  That kid was so weird.

"Buffy," Dawnie supplied.  She spoke fluent Drusilla.  "She's talking about Buffy."  

I looked at the ringlet of flowers in Dru's hair, and Dru stared back at me, her dark hair pigtails standing perfectly still.

I shrugged.  "All I know," I said, "is that Wes had better not change his name to stick."

"Why?" Dawnie and Dru asked at the same time.

"Because then he'd have to spend all of his time up Buffy's ass," I replied.  Dru and Dawnie giggled, just because I'd said ass.

I didn't say anything else until the game started.  Mostly because I was thinking.  Spike got me, more than anyone else, he got me.  He didn't Faith Giles me, or act like I was worse than everyone else, and Tara even liked him enough to sit on his shoulders.  If Buffy wasn't going to admit that she liked him, too, maybe I'd have to help her out a little.  B always did learn the hard way.

I bit down on my bottom lip and forced myself to pay attention to the game.  I drove the ball toward the goal, looking around for someone to pass it to.  Dru, as usual, was wandering aimlessly around the field, singing some song about rainbow colored fairies dust landing on periwinkle snow plows or something like that, and Dawn was totally staring at Spike and not paying any attention to the game at all.

"Over here, Giles," Darla called, her voice commanding.

I looked around for someone else to pass it to.  Anyone else to pass it to.

"Pass it here," Darla hissed.

I shrugged, and as hard as I could, I sent the ball flying straight toward her face.  It knocked her over, and I smiled.

"Sodding hell, Faith!" Spike bellowed.  Without even looking, I knew that Buffy was glaring at him, and that Lindsey was probably negotiating another name change with Girly-Man.

"MOMMY, IS SODDING HELL LIKE CONDOMS?" I heard a little voice ask very, very loudly.  

Darla stumbled to her feet.  Quickly, I recovered the ball and drove it toward the goal.  

"Go Faithster!" I heard Xander yell.

"Sodding alien condom hell!" Andrew chimed in.  "And stuff."

As I drove the ball into the goal, I heard Anya ask one more question.  "Why is Buffy making that face at Mr. Spike, Mommy?  Is that an orgasm face?"

I had trained her well.

TBC… up next, more kiddo shenanigans with Spike, and then some Buffy/Faith alone time.

PLEASE REVIEW!  


	7. You Can't Catch Me

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.  Joss owns all.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just sent out the first addition of my newsletter, complete with ideas for future CHEAPER-based fics, some ficlets starring kiddos from my other fics, challenges, book recs, and more.  If you're interested in receiving the back copy, just email me at joeygirl2006@yahoo.com

Also, I thought I might point you all towards some of my other stories.

If you like little Dru, try THERE BE DRAGONS.

If you like little Tara, check out Val in SMALL PACKAGES.

If you're a fan of little Anya, try my MOMMY'S LITTLE CAPITALIST stories.

And for more quality Faith, try THROWBACK.

Lastly, to the person who requested that Buffy be a bit less bitchy… remember, this is from Faith's point of view, and I'm trying to mirror what Faith must have thought during the show, how Buffy might have seemed to her, so of course Buffy is going to seem not as likeable as some of the other characters… for now, at least.   

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Seven

            By the break at half time, Mom had finally gotten Anya and Andrew quiet (like that was actually going to last), Lindsey had given up tormenting Wes in favor of trying to convince Xander to join him in what he had been referring to for weeks as "Project X," and I had been on my best behavior.  Almost.

            "Faith."  Spike was not happy.  He gave me what passed for his best imitation of a stern look.  

            "Yes?" I said.  He looked at me and crossed his arms over his chest.  I stared back at him.  A few feet away, Willow and Tara were doing their best to keep Buffy distracted.  Willow was rattling on about something "prodigious" (her newest favorite word), and Tara had simply deposited herself at Buffy's feet, her head resting against Buffy's leg.

            "You tell her to stop knocking me down," Darla instructed Spike in her very bossiest voice, coming to stand right in front of him, her hands on her hips and her blonde ponytail swinging.

            I scoffed in her general direction.  It wasn't my fault that she couldn't keep her balance whenever I sent the ball barreling in the general direction of her forehead.  Or whenever I happened to run into her.  Or whenever I happened to herd her into a pole.  

            "You tell her, boy," Darla told Spike, so mad she was practically spitting.

            Spike turned to look at her, and only I saw his eyes flash.  "Darla," he said, his voice very controlled.

            She raised her eyebrows at him.  "Yes?"

            "Take an extra lap to cool down."  

            I smirked and Darla glared at me.  She huffed and took off running, her blonde ponytail bouncing as she ran.  I seriously wanted to do something to that ponytail.  Maybe I could see if Lindsey had any ideas.

            "So, Firebit," Spike drawled, ducking down to my height.  "You want to tell me what's going on in that little blood thirsty head of yours?"

            I shrugged.

            He waited.  I looked down at the ground, but the sound of Spike clearing his throat had me looking up again.

            "She messed with Dawn," I said finally.  "Nobody messes with my family.  Nobody."

            Spike let out a low whistle.  "Fair enough, Firebit," he said.  "But it stops.  Now."

            I put my most innocent expression on my face.

            "I mean it," he said.  "I'll keep Darla away from Dawn, but if you don't let up on the little…" Spike trailed off, searching for a word he could say in my presence that would capture Darla's personality.

            "Bitch?" I suggested.

            "Faith Giles!" Buffy managed to get a few words in before Willow side tracked her again.

            "Darla is very prodigious when it comes to female aggression in emotional terms," Willow piped up.

            Spike snorted and almost lost it in that moment, but he did give me one more warning look and opened his mouth to speak.

            "Just once more," I said.  "Because she said things about my whole family.  She's always saying things about us."  And for that she must pay, I added silently.

            "No more," Spike argued.

            I batted my eyelashes at him.

            "Once more," I said.  "I'll make it a good one."

            He didn't say anything, and I knew right then that, if I played my cards right, I could lay Darla out one more time before the game was over.

            Like I'd told Spike, no one messed with my family.  No one.    

            Almost on cue, Anya and Andrew let out battle cries.  

"Take that, you sex fiend!" Anya yelled.

            "You may try, earthling, but Condom Man will not be defeated by your paltry whip cream lasers!"  Andrew called back in between sniffs.  

            Apparently, they were playing Condom Man again.

"Quite a sentence for such a little mate," Spike mused, casting a sideways glance at Buffy.  "Wonder where such little bits picked up that kind of know-how."

            In one move, Buffy picked Tara up and settled her on one hip and took Willow's hand in hers.

            "Faith, can I speak with you for a minute?" Buffy said, shooting darts at Spike with her eyes.

            "May you," Willow corrected.

            Spike grinned at her, pointedly ignoring Buffy.

            "I'm prodigious," Willow informed him.  "So's Faith and so's Tara."

            Tara said nothing, but as Buffy came closer, she reached her hands out to Spike, and Spike took her easily into his arms.  "Hey there, little one," he said gently.  "Got a story for me today, while big sis and bigger sis duke it out?"

            Tara nodded solemnly, and she whispered something into his ear.

            "Tara tells stories?" Buffy asked.

            "She's quite the prodigious storyteller," Willow said, nodding.

            "Get with the times, B," I told her.  "Tara does a lot of stuff that you don't know about.  We all do."

            "You can't catch me, Condom Man," Anya chanted in the stands, sticking her tongue out at Andrew.  "I'm superfast!"

            "There is no speed like Condom speed," Andrew said, chasing after her.  "It's faster than warp speed."  

            The other parents were starting to look at Mom weird, but she didn't say anything.  Mom believed in freedom of expression.  Dad, not so much so, but he wasn't there yet.  My guess was that he was still having that man to man talk with Riley.

            I snickered at the very thought of it.

            Anya eluded Andrew's capture, and while the rousing game of Condom Man continued, Buffy sent Willow up to sit with mom in the stands, so that she and I could have "a little talk."

            Buffy talks were always lectures, and Buffy lectures always ended up being about Buffy.  It didn't used to be that way, but ever since we'd moved to the city, she'd stopped coming around all together.  She had a job now.  She had a life now, and we weren't part of that life, not really.

            Not even when we needed her.

            Not that I needed her, because I didn't.  Faith Giles didn't need anybody.  I took care of people.  I didn't need anyone to take care of me.  That's just the way it was.

            "Faith," Buffy said, "I realize that you're angry with me because Mom and Dad grounded you kids for what you did to Parker, but there's no reason to be taking that anger out on some girl on your soccer team."

            I rolled my eyes, because, of course, it had to have something to do with Buffy.

            "I've had just about enough of your attitude, Faith Giles," Buffy told me.  "What's gotten into you lately?"

            It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her about the kids at school, about the way Tara cried at night, about the way Cordy really didn't feel as pretty or as special anymore, about the way that Xander never laughed at school anymore.  I just almost told her about everything that was going wrong and how I couldn't make everything right anymore, no matter how hard I tried.  I almost told her, but I didn't.

            "Bite Me."

            I could practically see her wondering why she could never get through to me.  Like I was the one who needed to be gotten through to.  She didn't understand anything, and suddenly, I wanted to pummel Darla more than ever.

            "GOT YOU!  I GOT YOU ORGASM GIRL!  I GOT YOU!  XANDER, XANDER, DID YOU SEE?  I GOT HER!"  Andrew had Anya in his arms, and the two of them were playfully kicking at each other and yelling at the top of their lungs.

            Buffy shook her head.  "I think this family has gotten even more with the insane lately," she said.

            Without missing a beat, Mom separated Anya and Andrew and whispered something in their ears.  For a moment, both of them were quiet.  Like that was gonna last.

            With Mom distracted, Lindsey and Xander whispered, conspiring about what, I could only assume, was Xander's newfound knowledge about Project X.

            Wes was sitting a little bit off to the side, and I made a mental note to make sure that, whatever it was, he got in on Project X, too, and that Lindsey renegotiated the name change.

            "Listen, B," I said, knowing she'd never understand.  "I have to go play the rest of this game."  I so didn't feel like fighting with her.  Not right now.  She looked at me, and I shrugged.  "I'll be good," I told her flippantly.  "Scout's honor."

            "You aren't a scout," Buffy said, as I walked away.

            "Give the girl a cookie," I called back over my shoulder as I walked over to where Dru was singing to herself under her breath.

            "A princess, a princess, the soccer ball knew a princess. A princess, a princess…"  Her pigtails were lopsided, and a little bit of black hair drooped into her face.

            "The pretty lady likes my warrior," she said, and then she burst into a round of fierce giggles.  I followed her gaze and saw Buffy taking Tara back from Spike's arms.  Her face softened into a smile, and Spike said something that made Buffy and Tara laugh.  

            Maybe Buffy did like Spike.

            Maybe Spike did like Buffy.

            Maybe, if they did like each other, she'd start hanging around some more.

            Maybe if she had a good boyfriend, she'd be happier, and maybe if she was happier, she wouldn't hate me quite so much.

            Maybe Spike could pry the stick out of her ass.  I grinned wickedly.

            "Well, I guess Spike told you," Darla said brashly, interrupting my thoughts.  "You can't just shove me around, Faith Giles.  I'm just as good at soccer as you are.  My brother said so, and my darling boy doesn't like it when people pick on me!"

            Spike and Buffy shot me nearly identical warning looks over Darla's head.  

            I ignored them, and as the second half of the game started, I whispered to myself under my breath.  "Play ball."  

TBC… the second half of the game, Anya and Andrew get themselves a rematch, more on Project X, Drusilla tries to braid Spike's hair, and much, much more…

PLEASE REVIEW!


	8. Monologues

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't really have one, except to tell you all to let me know which fic you'd like me to start as soon as I finish Throwback.  The options are in my profile, and to thank the people at the Barefoot Awards for their awards.

Also, fair warning, though I am feeling kinda Spuffy on this fic, there will be elements of both Spuffy and B/A here for a while.  I figure that if you throw them all into a room, this is close to what might happen.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Eight

            By the time the game was wrapping up, Darla's face was a lovely, furious shade of bright pink.  Granted, that probably had a little bit to do with the fact that she'd run into a goal post in the exact moment that I beamed her in the side of the head with the ball.  

            "That.  Is.  It." Darla growled.  "You, girl," she said to me.  "You're going to be sorry.  You just wait.  You can't just do something like this to me.  Nobody does this to me."

            I shrugged.  "Geez, Darla," I said loudly, trying to sound like the good little girl everyone wished I was. "I'm really sorry.  You just sort of got in the way of the goal."  I smirked.  "Or maybe the goal got in your way," I amended.  She glared at me.  "Bitch," I added cheerfully.

            "Faith!" Buffy and Spike both yelled my name at the exact same time.

            I smiled at them both.  "I'm done," I called over to them.  The two of them glanced at each other and then quickly away.

            "Grandmummy is not happy," Dru said wisely.

            Darla glowered at her.  "Stop calling me that!" she said, her blonde ponytail wagging back and forth as she turned her fury on Dru.  "Can't you be normal?  I'm not your grandmother, Dru.  I'm Darla, and all of you had better realize that pretty soon."

            Dru looked at me, wide eyed.

            "That's one angry grandmother," I said, even though I had no idea what Dru was talking about.

            Darla seethed.  I grinned.  This day was finally getting better.

            A few minutes and one goal later, we beat the other team six to two.  

            "We won, we won, we won, we won!" Dawn sang, jumping up and down happily.

            Darla scowled at her.

            "Taste of victory too much for you?" I asked her, "Or are you constipated?"

            "Tastes like moonlight," Dru said.  She licked her lips and rubbed her stomach, her dark pigtails dancing.  "It tastes of moonlight and sparkly flowers."  As soon as the words left her mouth, Dru took a flower out of her hair and ceremoniously handed it to Spike.  "You can be the prince," she told him.

            Spike looked at her for a moment, but said nothing.  Dru skipped happily around him, singing under her breath.  

            "Okay, niblets," Spike said, clearing his throat.  

            "Don't call us that, boy," Darla said immediately, still in a huff.

            "Why don't you take a lap to cool down?" Spike suggested.

            Darla clenched her fists, totally ready to argue with him, but a second later, she relaxed, looking very sweet and innocent.  Gag me.

            "Angel!" Darla called out.  

            Spike rolled his eyes and turned around as Darla's older brother, who wasn't nearly as bitchy as she was, walked up, a brooding expression on his face and a tiny, blonde haired girl riding on his shoulders.  Spike met Angel's eyes and then turned back to us, kneeling down to our height and ceremoniously ignoring Darla's older brother.

            "It was a good game," he told us.  "You played rough, but you played well."  He looked at us seriously.  "You played with fire."  He paused.  He glanced at Dawn and Dru.  "You played with heart."  That was the nice Spike way of telling them that, even though neither of them could play soccer, he was glad they were on the team anyway.  "So, Bits," he said, "what say we go for pizza?"

            "I'm not going," Darla announced, her arms crossed over her chest.  She stalked up to her brother.

            "Darling boy," she said, and I practically gagged at the nickname.  "That girl was mean to me."  She pointed her finger directly at me.  

            "It's rude to point."  Dawnie said, her eyes wide.  I bit back a smirk, and my twin slung her arm around my shoulders.

            Angel narrowed his eyes at me and then looked back at Darla suspiciously.  

            "I'm so sorry," Buffy said, walking right into the middle of things.  I glowered at her.  I wasn't sorry.  I sure as hell didn't need her to be sorry on my behalf.  

            Angel turned his head to stare at her.  For a moment, they just looked at each other.  "It's all right," Angel said.

            "Hey!" Darla said, outraged.  "It is not all right."

            Angel ignored her, still staring at Buffy, the serious expression never leaving his face.  

            "I'm Buffy Giles," Buffy told him brightly.  My stomach flip flopped as my Buffy radar turned on.  What was she up to?

            "Angel," Darla's brother replied, his eyes still locked onto hers.

            "Spike!" A second after the cry left her mouth, Anya launched herself at Spike.  Spike caught her easily in his arms.  

            "Did you know that doggies have orgasms?" Anya asked, perfectly content to be in Spike's arms.  "And Riley has condoms, and Buffy isn't getting the sex from her boyfriend anymore, and…"

            "AND CONDOM MAN WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!" Andrew added, yelling at the top of his lungs.  He put his hands on his hips and thrust his little chest out, a proud look on his face.  "The condom way of life will be preserved.  We here on Condonomia will prevail."  He took a deep breath.  "Whip cream lasers and vagina monologues have no effect on Condom Man!"

            "Vagina monologues?" Angel repeated, his tone of voice not changing at all.

            "Is that a flavor of ice cream?" the little blonde girl on his shoulders asked.  "Or, oooooohhhhhh, is it a pretty dress?  I want a pretty vagina dress, Angel!"

            "It's not a dress," Andrew told the little girl shyly.  "I heard Riley's girlfriend talking about them.  I think they might be like light sabers."  Immediately, Andrew started making light saber noises.  Why Mom and Dad ever let a four year old watch Star Wars, I wasn't really sure.

            "Vsssshhhhhhhoooooom," Andrew said.  "Vshooooom Vagiiiiiiinnnnnnaaaaa Vshooooooom."   

"Andrew!" Buffy said.

            Andrew looked at her solemnly.  He dug into his pocket with his grubby little boy hands and pulled out a condom and held it out to Buffy.  "May the force be with you," he said.  

            Buffy immediately glanced at Spike, and he raised one eyebrow.  She blushed furiously and deliberately turned away from him.  A grin spread slowly over Spike's face.  I watched them carefully, thinking.

            "I don't want a say-thing," the girl on Angel's shoulders said.

            "Saber," Andrew corrected her seriously.

            "I want a pretty vagina dress," the girl insisted, her little face serious.

            Angel cringed without really changing his facial expression that much at all.  "Harmony," he said, his voice low, "you don't need another dress."

            Little Harmony stuck her lower lip out, pouting.

            "You don't have to be so snippy about it," she said.  

            "That's an awful prodigious sentence for a kid so small," Willow said, coming up behind us, Tara a single step behind her.  Shyly, Tara waved at Spike.

            Harmony grinned a big, toothy grin.  "Mommy says Angel is always snippy.  Daddy calls it brooding."

            "Maybe he has too much sperm," Anya suggested.

            Harmony nodded thoughtfully.

            "This sounds like a problem for Condom Man," Andrew boomed.

            I cleared my throat.  This had all gone on long enough.  "Buffy," I said, forcing her to pay attention to me instead of pretending like she wasn't pointedly ignoring Spike.  "Are we going to pizza or not?"  

            It would be just like her to say no.  I could practically see her saying no.

            Tara offered Buffy a small smile.  "Please?" she whispered.

            "Please?" Anya, Andrew, and Willow echoed.

            "I told you," Lindsey said to Xander as the two of them walked up to us.  "This is level nine information you now have access to.  Project X is not an endeavor to be taken on lightly."

            "I signed the confidentiality forms, didn't I?" Xander asked.

            "Project X?" Buffy asked.

            Lindsey turned his poker face on her.  "I'm afraid that information is classified."

            Lindsey winked at me, and I got the distinct feeling that, whatever Project X was, I was going to like it.

            "Eat the pizza or the pizza will eat you," Dru announced solemnly.  Andrew's eyes widened at her words, and he inched closer to Spike.

            "B," I said sharply, snapping her back down to earth.  "Do you want pizza or not?"

            "We're going," Angel said.  Darla glared at him, and I had the sudden urge to chuck something at her.  Maybe a brick.  Or a cinder block.

            "Totally awesome," Harmony chirped from Angel's shoulder.  I grinned.  Darla's little sister was three going on thirteen.  How deliciously ironic.

            "Come on, luv," Spike whispered into the back of Buffy's hair so softly that no one but me heard him.

            Buffy opened her mouth and then closed it again, and a few minutes later, we were all on our way to pizza.

TBC… up next, Dru plays with Spike's hair, Spike and Angel vie for Buffy, the other kids get in on Project X, Anya, Andrew, and Harmony start a brand new game, Cordy and Riley show up, and Darla makes Tara cry.

PLEASE REVIEW!


	9. Avenger Venger Venger

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the canon.  Twentieth Century Fox and the Gilbreths own Cheaper by the Dozen, on which this is loosely, loosely, almost not even based.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the lack of updates.  Midterms and my professional writing life have gotten kind of crazy.  Enjoy, and special thanks to the fine folks at the Spike Threw the Hearts awards for recognizing this fic in the WIP category!

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Nine

            "We're just going to eat," Buffy said firmly.  "Nothing else," she added as she pulled out of the parking lot and headed left towards Pepe's House of Pizza, or as we Giles kids liked to call it, Pepe's House of Chaos with Cheese.  Then again, in retrospect, Pepe's probably wasn't quite so chaotic when the twelve of us weren't there.

            "Okay, B," I said dryly.  "So we're just going to the restaurant to eat.  I had no idea there was eating at restaurants."  I rolled my eyes.  Did she think she was making some sort of insightful announcement here?

            "Going to eat," Willow echoed from the back seat.  "Prodigiously."  I turned around in time to see her wrinkling her nose and leaning over to whisper something to Tara.  Finally, she sat back up.  "We're not going to eat prodigiously," she said majestically.  "I had a consultation with Tara, and that's not our special word anymore.  Our new special word is veraciously, so everyone has to eat their pizza veraciously."

            "Don't they do that in France?" Dawn asked curiously.  I snorted, but since she was my twin, I did it really quietly.  I didn't want to hurt Dawnie's feelings.

            "I mean it," Buffy said sternly.  "You kids are grounded, so we're going in, eating, and then your day of restriction and servitude begins."

            "Servitude," I muttered, "big word."

            Buffy frowned at me, and I shut my mouth.  For now.

            "Servitude with veracity," Willow piped up from the back seat.  Tara stuck a finger in her mouth and said nothing.

            "Which may," Lindsey said smoothly, "very well be a violation of our constitutional rights."  Buffy arched an eyebrow at him, and Lindsey shrugged.  "However," he said with an impish grin, "my energies are currently directed elsewhere, so we will not be pursuing any further negotiations regarding aforementioned grounding at this time; however, should other instances of such grounding occur, we may well be forced to take legal action."

            "And stuff," Xander added.

            I grinned.  I loved those two.

            "So what's diverting your energies?" I asked curiously.

            Xander opened his mouth and then closed it and pointed very conspicuously at Buffy.  "That's confidential," he said, "but it involves tooth paste, duct tape, and Principal Martin."

            "What?!" Buffy shrieked from the front seat.  She pulled into the parking lot and whirled around to face the boys.

            Xander grinned up at her, his face a mask of innocence.  "Never mind, Buffster," he said sweetly.  

            "Lindsey," Buffy said, arching her eyebrows at him.

            Lindsey kept his expression blank.  "I'm afraid I can neither confirm nor deny such a statement at this time," he said.

            "Lindsey," Buffy said through gritted teeth, "you're eight, not a partner in a law firm."

            "Or is he?" Xander asked, doing a horror show announcer voice and striking a pensive pose.  "Duh-duh-dum!"

            "Look," Dawn shrieked, pointing out the window.  "There's Coach Spike.  Faith, if we hurry, we might get to sit next to him."  Without another word, my twin threw open the door to the car, jumped out, and made a beeline for Spike.

            As soon as his name left Dawn's mouth, Buffy turned to glance at Spike, and for a moment, his eyes held hers and a strange look came over her face.  Then she turned back to return to lecturing Xander and Lindsey, but my brothers, not being nearly as dumb as Buffy was, were already out of the car and on their way into the restaurant.

            "I'm veraciously hungry," Willow said.  She threaded her hand through Tara's.  "Tara is, too."  Tara nodded solemnly.

            Buffy sighed.  "Go on in," she said.  "I want to talk to Faith for a second."

            Oh joy.

            I crossed my arms over my chest.  She hadn't told me good game.  She hadn't asked how the ankle I'd sprained two weeks ago was doing.  She hadn't even asked why I was so mad at Darla.  Buffy wasn't very good at asking.  Ever since we'd moved, all she did was a whole lot of telling.

            "Faith, I'm being nice by letting you come to lunch with some of your friends when you're supposed to be grounded," Buffy said, looking me straight in the eye.  "I expect you to be on your best behavior.  If you do anything to that poor girl…"

            I snorted at the idea of anyone referring to Darla as 'that poor girl.'  Darla would have been the first one to be snotty to Buffy for it.  Of course, Buffy didn't know that, because, of course, the whole Darla fiasco had to be my fault, because everything was my fault.

            "I mean it, Faith Giles," Buffy said.  "If you're not on your best behavior, I'll jerk you right out of that restaurant."  

            "Fine," I muttered.  Then I smiled slyly at her.  "Why would I need to cause any trouble?" I asked her sweetly.  She looked at me, relieved.  "It's Pepe's House of Chaos with Cheese," I said.  "I won't have to cause trouble.  There's always trouble."

            Without saying another word, I got out of the car and walked silently past her.

            "Faith," Buffy called.

            I hesitated for a moment and then turned around.

            "Yeah?" I said.

            "We're going to talk later.  About Parker, about the game, about you."

            Yeah right.  Like we ever talked about anything.

            "A-orgasming we go, a-orgasming we go, hi ho the orgasm-o, a-orgasming we go!"  Anya jumped out of Mom's car with a beaming smile on her face.  "Do you like my new song, Buffy?" Anya asked.  "It's about orgasms," she clarified, as if that fact might have somehow passed Buffy by.

            "Mom," Buffy complained, shooting my mom a pained look.

            "It's a stage," Mom replied, shrugging.

            "An orgasm stage," Anya clarified brightly, her blond pigtails bouncing.  At age four, Anya hadn't quite mastered any kind of speaking that didn't involve talking very, very loudly.

            "I know your wiley, sex-pleasure tricks, Orgasm Girl," Andrew said, making his voice as deep as he could.  "But Condom Man will not accept defeat, and Condomonia will prevail.  Our way of life and sperm will persevere over the dark side."

            "Hi!" a little voice said brightly.  "I'm Harmony Elizabeth O'Connor, and I'm three years old, and do you have a pretty vagina dress for me?"

            My mom smiled down at Harmony.  "What a pretty dress you're wearing right now," she said.

            Harmony smiled sweetly.  "My Bubby Boo got it for me," she said.

            I practically swallowed my tongue.  Bubby Boo?  BUBBY BOO?!

            Buffy smiled in Angel's general direction, and I wanted to paint a giant neon sign over his head that said 'Bubby Boo.'

            Harmony walked over to him.  "You got me this dress, didn't you, Bubby?"

            Angel looked away for a moment, sighed, and then nodded ever so slightly.

            "Oh," Darla said, coming up.  "It's you."  She shot darts at me with her eyes.

            "Your powers of observation astound me," I said dryly.

            Darla looked up at Angel.  "Do you see how mean she is to me?" she said, her hands on her hips.  "I want to go home right now, my boy.  Take me home."

            "Faith!" Buffy hissed.

            Angel patted Darla absentmindedly on the head.  "It's okay," he said.

            "It is not," Darla insisted.  "Nothing about that girl is okay."

            I clenched my fist.  I'd show her okay.

            "Harmony, would you like to play Condom man with us?  You can be the sperm if you want to, or you could be Climax Girl or maybe even The Foreplay Avenger."

            "No fair," Andrew said.  "I want to be an avenger."  He placed his hands on his hips and thrust out his chest.  "From now on, I'm the Condom Avenger."  Andrew looked around and then very conspicuously said his new name over and over again until it sounded like it was echoing, at the top of his lungs.  "CONDOM AVENGER-VENGER-VENGER."

            Harmony giggled a high pitch giggle and clapped her hands together.  

            "Do you know what the lollipop said to the flower wind?"  Dru danced up to our group, a spacey expression on her face.

            Dru grinned.  "Hello, Faith.  Hello, Grandmummy.  Hello people-people everywhere."

            "What did the lollipop say to the flower wind?" I asked, humoring her.

            "Luke, I am your father," Andrew guessed.  "Is that what it said?"

            "Oh, no no no no no," Dru said in a sing songy voice.

            "Did it say that this is stupid?" Darla asked between clenched teeth.  "Because it's absolutely infantile.  And stop calling me Grandmummy."

            Dru ignored Darla.  "It said," she whispered, and everyone, including Angel and Buffy, leaned in to hear the answer, "eat the pizza or the pizza will eat you."  

            I grinned.  It looked like Dru had found a new favorite phrase.

            "And do you know what the butterfly said to the rain?" Dru asked.

            "Let me guess," I said.  "Eat the pizza or the pizza will eat you."

            Dru nodded and beamed at me.

            "Bubby Boo," Harmony said, looking up at Angel.  "I don't want the pizza to eat me!"  

            "Well then," I said.  "I guess you'll just have to eat it."

            Without another word, I walked into the restaurant, Harmony, Anya, and Andrew right behind me, Andrew explaining to Harmony how to play their newest game.

            "And the Fortress of Solitude and Masturbation is the name of our headquarters on Condomonia," Andrew said.

            "Mother," Buffy hissed.  "Was it really necessary to teach them _everything_?"

            As soon as Andrew finished speaking, I grinned lazily.  "Speak of the devil," I said, pointing as Riley and Cordy hopped out of Riley's car.  "It's the original Condom Man himself."  I smirked.

            Wait for it.  Wait for it.

            "Faith Giles," Mom and Buffy said at once.

            Sure, I thought.  When Anya said it, she was in a stage, but when I said it, I was Faith Gilesed.  Such was the world.

             A moment later, a third person climbed out of Riley's car, and Buffy glared in Sam's general direction.  For some reason, my oldest sister hated Riley's girlfriend with a passion.

            "Yay!" Anya squealed.  "Riley's here.  I bet he has some more condoms for us to play with."

            "My supply has been dangerously depleted," Andrew said seriously.

            "And now he and Cordy can play, and we can have enough players for an Orgy Game!"

            "Bubby Boo, what's an orgy?  Is it like a pretty necklace?"  

            I couldn't help myself.  It was just too much.  I lost it and started cracking up.

            "Faith," Buffy said, shooting a quick worried glance in Angel's general direction.

            I waited until Mom turned her head away, and I mouthed two words to Buffy.

            "Bite.  Me."

            Then, I ran into the restaurant to find Spike.

TBC…More of all the kiddos, and some Buffy/Spike/Angel interaction, with Cordy and Harmony bonding, a new game for Anya and Andrew, Lindsey lets Faith in on Project X, and we find out why exactly Pepe's is a house of Chaos with Cheese.

PLEASE REVIEW!


	10. Food Fight

DISCLAIMER: Joss, twentieth century fox, and the Gilbreth family own their respective intellectual property.  No encroachment is meant.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so I've decided to make a little series out of this story, but I'll be switching narrators with the sequel to one of the other kids.  I've decided to end this one without focusing on a single ship for Buffy.  The Spike and Angel debate will be decided in subsequent stories.  I know the story's moving kind of fast now, but I'm seriously needing a change of pace.  Future CHEAPER stories will include one focusing on Project X, from Lindsey's perspective, and one centering on Andrew and Anya, as well as one that I might write from Tara's perspective. 

Anyway, enjoy.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Ten

            I could practically hear Buffy getting all huffy behind me as I ran into Pepe's, but I didn't care.  It wasn't like she cared when things got all huffy-like in my life, or in any of our lives.  I didn't really care so much that she didn't care that the move had more or less destroyed my life, because I was tough and I could take it, but she didn't even care about half of the stuff that happened to Tara because she was quiet, or Wills because of her big word thing, or Lindsey because of his lawyerese.

            See, it didn't matter so much that she didn't care about me, because I wouldn't let it hurt me.  I never let anything hurt me.  

            Five by five, I told myself.  Bite Me Giles was absolutely Five by Five.

            "Hey Faithster," Xander bellowed as soon as I entered the restaurant.  "Can you hook me up with some Z-Elevens?"  Xander loved using code names for everything, and Z-Eleven was his code for ketchup packets.  I walked up to the counter and snagged some.  For a couple of weeks a few months back, Pepe's had stopped carrying ketchup for the French fries they always served with every pizza because my family had a variety of very interesting uses for little packets of ketchup.  They made interesting projectiles.

            I tossed several packets to Xander, and her grinned madly.  "Phase one," he told Lindsey, "is now complete."

            I knew without asking that they were talking about Project X.  

            "Phase one of what?" Spike asked curiously, breaking away from Dawn's mile a minute chatter to talk to my brothers.

            "I'm afraid that information falls under privilege," Lindsey said.  "I'm ethically and legally obligated not to disclose it, and I take my obligations very seriously."

            Spike grinned.  "Kid could come in handy," he told me with a wink.  "If you need some negotiating done."

            I thought about the deal Lindsey had struck with the groundings.  After all, we were supposed to be grounded right that second, and there we were at Pepe's House of Chaos with Cheese.  "You have no idea," I told Spike.

            "No idea about what?" Anya asked loudly.  "No idea about pleasure zones?"

            Spike choked on the soda he was drinking.

            "Do not worry, choking man," Andrew piped up in his best imitation of a big, booming voice.  "The Condom Avenger will not allow that soda to thwart you."  Andrew scrambled into a chair, onto the table and squatted down, right next to Spike's drink.  "I will neutralize it with my all-powerful Condom Stare," Andrew explained, and then he wiped his nose on his arm.

            "Voracious little guy, isn't he?" Willow asked Tara.

            Silently, Tara nodded.  

            "Tara thinks Andrew is voracious, too," Willow announced to the table at large.

            "But, Bubby, what if the pizza eats me?" a little voice shrieked behind me.  I turned to grin in Harmony's general direction.  Anya and Andrew had corrupted her.  She was part of the chaos now.

            "Eat the pizza or the pizza will eat you," Dru sang loudly.

            Anya improvised on Dru's newest saying.  "Sex the pizza or the pizza will sex you," she announced.

            A woman at a nearby table looked properly shocked, and I pulled Anya to me in a hug.  Damn, I loved that kid.

            I loved them all.

            "You can't sex a pizza," another voice spoke up.  "That's positively moronic."

            I turned toward Darla, my fists clenched.  "Did you just call my sister moronic?" I asked.

            "Trouble with your hearing, Giles?" she countered in a bored voice.

            Spike leaned forward.  "Don't rise to it, Firebit," he told me.  "You're better than that."

            "Are you calling me a 'that,' boy?" Darla asked, outraged.

            "You're my second favorite that, Grandmummy," Dru said comfortingly.  "After the pizza shower."

            I snorted.  I had no idea what she was saying, but Dru sure had one heck of a sense of timing.  

            "I'm going to need for you to sign this," Lindsey said smoothly, scribbling something on a napkin and handing it across to Darla.  He winked at her.  Sometimes, I thought my brother had a crush on Darla.

            Boys could be so dumb.

            Darla looked down at the napkin, confused.

            "He wants your autograph," Dawnie told her, in a rare moment of brilliance.  Darla, full of her own importance, bought Dawnie's explanation hook, line, and sinker, and next thing I knew she was signing the napkin.  Lindsey sighed.  I could tell that he liked her, but Darla had more or less declared war on the Giles kids the moment she'd insulted Anya.

            "Now that the legalities are taken care of," Lindsey said, "might I suggest…." He trailed off.

            Xander grinned broadly.  "FOOD FIGHT!" he yelled, and immediately, he picked a wad of spaghetti up off of his buffet plate and launched it at Darla overhand.  

            Willow looked at Tara.  "Voracious solidarity," she said, and Tara nodded.  That was Willow-speak for the fact that us Giles kids stuck together.  Promptly, Willow and Tara ran to the salad bar and scooped the vanilla pudding out with their hands.  Darla, screeching in fury at the spaghetti sauce sliding down her blonde ponytail, didn't notice as Tara and Willow launched the pudding at her.  The pudding bombs hit her, one after another, smack in the face.

            My siblings had impeccable aim.

            Andrew, still staring at Spike's drink, picked it up and stood up on the table.  "I'm going to have to confiscate this," he said.  "It has been infected with the evil fizz of asexuality and must be destroyed to preserve the Condomonian way."  As he splashed the soda onto Darla's face, Andrew made a whirring sound that I recognized as his light saber impression.

            Watching Darla with the gook running down her face and her hair, I bit back a smile.

            "This is all _your_ fault," she hissed between clenched teeth.

            "Faith Eliza Giles!" 

            I jumped at the sound of Buffy's voice.  

            "In my car," she bit out in between her teeth.  "Now."

            "But…" 

            "But…" 

            "Buffy, she didn't…"

            I shook my head at my siblings.  "Don't even bother," I told them.  It wasn't like Buffy would believe them anyway.  As far as she was concerned, I was the bad one.  That was just the way things were.

            Silently, I followed Buffy out to her car, leaving Pepe's, chaos, cheese, and all, behind me.

TBC…Buffy and Faith get some one on one time.

PLEASE REVIEW!


	11. Solidarity

DISCLAIMER: Joss. 20th Century Fox, and the Gilbreths own the canon and the concept respectively.  I only own Condom Man and Orgasm Girl.  Great possessions, eh?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You guys were so wonderful about reviewing the last chapter that I was absolutely inspired to update quickly.  And yes, I know Buffy is being mean, but read on… As for future fics, right now I'm looking at a fic from Tara's perspective, just because she's so quiet that I think there's a lot of stuff to be explored there, with Anya/Andrew ficlets and a Project X mini-series starring Xander and Lindsey, with Xander as the narrator.  And yes, in future stories I'll try to accommodate all of your requests for characters: Doyle (either as a teenager or a little boy with a crush on Cordy), Katy (for you, Imzadi), Oz, and more.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Eleven

            I followed Buffy out to the car without saying a word.  I kept my face blank.  I wasn't about to let her know that the fact that she automatically blamed me hurt so bad that I wanted to chuck cinder blocks at something (or someone).  One thing was for sure: I wasn't going to cry.  No matter what.  Bite Me Giles was one tough cookie.

            I was five by five.  She could blame me all she wanted to, and I still wouldn't give a care, five by five.

            "What in the world is wrong with you?" Buffy hissed, the second we were out of the ear reach of the rest of the crowd.  "I walk in there, and that poor girl is absolutely covered in food, Faith Giles, and that's…" she trailed off, and I rolled my eyes.  What was she, lecture girl?  

            "Did it ever occur to you, B," I asked, leaning lazily against the car, "that you're not Mom?"

            Her hands flew to her hips.  "Mom's under a lot of pressure right now with the gallery opening," Buffy said, "and she doesn't need to have to be dealing with you and your little mess."

            If you asked me, Darla was the one who was a little mess.  Literally.

            A slight smile crept onto my face.  Giles kids totally put the venge in revenge.

            "Faith Giles, this isn't funny.  Now, we can stand here for as long as you want, but you're not going anywhere until you tell me what happened in there and why you did what you did to Parker and why it is that, out of everyone in this family, you have to make trouble."

            I took her words like a punch in the stomach, even though I made sure that my facial expression didn't change.  She made it sound like I wasn't even a part of the family, like I was destroying it or something.   Didn't she understand that the family, Anya, Andrew, Dawnie, Lindsey, all of them…they were my life.   Sometimes, I thought that if I hadn't have them, there wouldn't have been anything to fight for at all, and here she was telling me that I was the odd one out.

            "I make trouble," I told her, looking her straight in the eye and pushing down the tears that I could feel wanting to come, "because I can."  We'd see how she liked that as an answer.  I hoped she'd hate it, and she didn't disappoint.

            "But that's just it," Buffy said, "you can't, Faith.  Not anymore.  You're a smart girl, and you're strong and athletic and people follow you, and you have a responsibility to use your gifts wisely.  You can't just go on making with the pudding throwing every time someone says something you don't like."

            "You really don't get it, do you?" I asked.  I couldn't help myself.

            "Don't get what?" Buffy asked.  She lowered her voice, and I could tell just by looking at her that she thought she was trying to understand me, but she wasn't really.  She didn't want to understand me, because all she really wanted was for me to be like her, and that had nothing to do with understanding.  "I get that something's going on with you, Faith.  I do, really, but I can't help you with it if you don't tell me what it is, and the way you've been going, it's not acceptable."

            Like she even knew what acceptable was.

            I turned to walk away from her, and she reached out to grab my arm.  "No you don't," she said.  "We're staying right here until you talk to me, Faith Giles.  You're not just running away from this."

            So all of a sudden, I was the one who ran away from things?  I wasn't the one who had moved out, right when Mom and Dad had decided to uproot us all.  I wasn't the one Wills needed to talk to when someone made fun of her plaid jumper or the one that Andrew needed to answer his million and one useless questions or even the one that Xander tried all of his jokes out on.  She was the oldest, and no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much and how hard I loved them, they missed her, and it hurt so much that I couldn't fill the gap.  

            I couldn't be Buffy.

            I jerked my arm out of her grasp and bolted across the street.  She didn't understand.  No matter what I did, I wasn't Buffy, and we needed her, and the harder I tried to make things better for the rest of them, the more everything fell apart, because I just wasn't good enough.  Hadn't I always been the bad child?  The troublemaker?  Wasn't I the one who got in fistfights and came up with all of the evil plans?  

            I ran, blindly, away from her.

            "Faith!"  I heard her scream the moment before I saw the car, barreling towards me.  As I turned to look at it, I realized that there was nothing I could do.  It was speeding, and I was in its way, and for the life of me, I couldn't move a muscle.  The car swerved and screeching filled the air as the driver slammed on his brakes.  

            I stood there, like a deer in the headlights, and as the car just barely missed me, all I could think about was what my tombstone would look like.

_Here Lies Bite Me Giles_

_            She Was in Trouble_

_            A __Lot___

The next second, it was over, and the owner of the car was yelling.  Buffy caught up to me, and she pulled me quickly off of the road.  

            "Are you okay?" she asked, searching my body for phantom bruises.  The car hadn't even hit me.  What did she expect, air bruises?

            I looked away. 

            "You could have been… it….car…woosh…" Buffy started rambling incoherently.  I glanced up at her and noticed that her face had gone a pale white.  Her hands were shaking and her eyes were glassy with what might have been unshed tears.

            Tears?  For me?

            I didn't like seeing her like that.  Annoying or not, unfair or not, Buffy was a Giles, even if she hated me, and if there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was to see someone I loved hurting.  Even Buffy.

            "Listen, B," I said softly, "I'm okay."

            She stared at me, not understanding for a minute.

            "Really, I swear, Buffy, I'm…"  I never got to finish telling her I was fine, because in the next instant, chaos exploded all around me as my brothers and sisters poured out of Pepe's, where they'd all seen my close encounter of the car wrecky kind.

            "What in the bloody hell was that?"  Spike's voice broke through the yells of my siblings.  I turned to look at him, and he glared down at me.  I matched him, look for look, but I shivered on the inside.  I'd never seen anyone look so angry my entire life.  

            "I'm fine," I told Spike, keeping my voice calm.

            "Only because you're a lucky little chit," Spike boomed.  "Darting out in front of on-bloody-coming traffic…"  

            He trailed off, and I stared up at him, wide eyed.  

            "If you ever do anything like that again, Bit, I swear I'll thrash you within a sodding inch of your life," he said lowly.

            I didn't believe him, but I wasn't about to tell him that.  He was angry at me, really angry.  I couldn't get the image of the tombstone out of my mind, and here Spike was yelling at me.  The worst thing was, I knew that for once in my life, I actually deserved it.

            "Don't you talk to my sister that way," Buffy said, some of the color coming back into her cheeks.

            My mouth dropped open. She was actually standing up for me?  Was this the same Buffy who'd more or less accused me of being the bad seed?  The same Buffy who didn't have time to do anything but yell at me?

            Spike snorted.  "So _now_ you don't like the way I'm talking to your sister?" he asked.  "What about the way you've been talking to her the whole sodding day?  Do you even hear yourself, Big Sis?  Bit can't do anything without you jumping down her throat like she's Freddy Bloody Krueger."  

            Buffy put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at Spike.

            This was getting interesting, even if my favorite soccer coach ever was furious at me for almost getting myself killed.  I'd be lucky if I wasn't running extra laps for the next three weeks.  

            "That is not true," Buffy said.  "I don't yell at her all the time."  

            "Objection, your honor."  Lindsey spoke up.  The rest of my siblings, who'd rushed out along with Spike when the car had slammed on its brakes, looked over at him, silent.  Buffy turned towards him.  "You've been badgering the witness," Lindsey said, his voice low and serious.  "You've been badgering my sister."  He met my eyes when he said sister, and I knew that it meant something to him, that I meant something to him.

            Buffy took in a deep breath.  "I have n-"

            "Veraciously," Willow piped up, nodding solemnly.  

            "I gotta four oh niner that, Buffster," Xander said, still speaking in code.  "You do kinda yell at her a lot."

             How had I ever doubted, even for a minute, that they were behind me?  They loved me, maybe even as much as I loved them.

            "Faith?" Buffy asked, her voice hesitant, like she expected me to deny what everyone else was saying. 

            I wanted to say how true it was, and how unfair she'd been, and how I didn't understand why I always had to be the bad one, but instead, I just muttered under my breath.  "I don't give a care."

            That was a lie.  I did care.  A lot.

            "You're always yelling at her, Buffy," Dawnie whined, dragging Buffy's name out longer than I had thought was humanly possible.  "Even when it's not her fault."

            "Oh…oh…oh….yes…" Anya agreed, sounding strangely like someone in one of those shampoo commercials where they were having an 'organic' experience.  "Yes!  Yes!  Yes!" Anya continued, her pigtails bouncing.  "You do pick on Faith, and it makes me sexually repressed."

            Spike snorted.  "Don't think that's a problem," he said under his breath with a grin, chuckling.

            "She means sad," Andrew clarified.  "For Anya, sexually repressed means sad."  He put his little hands on his hips and thrust out his chest in a superman pose and he continued speaking.  "Faith is our Ejaculation Protector, and the Condom Avenger and Orgasm Girl don't like it when people hurt her feelings."

            I scuffed my foot into the ground.  "She didn't hurt my feelings," I muttered, refusing to meet Buffy's eyes.

            "Yes," a little voice spoke up, calm and certain.  "She did."  Everyone stared at Tara.  "Faith talks to us, and she listens, even when I don't talk.  She makes the kids at school be nice to me.  She…she…she…"  Tara stuttered a little, aware of the many eyes on her.  She wasn't used to talking so much around people.  "She's our sister, and she's good."  

            I smiled.  Like I said before, Tara didn't talk much, but when she did speak, it really meant something.

            "Faith, I…I never meant to…" Buffy trailed off.

            "I hope the pizza eats you!" Dru broke in passionately.  "Poor, poor princess all alone and scared and tough and strong, and the Pretty Lady just doesn't see.  I hope the pizza chomp chomp chomps you down like silver scissors!"      

            I was pretty sure that that was the first time in my life that someone had called me a princess and the first time that someone had wished a giant pizza would eat Buffy.  Such was Dru.

            Silently, Tara walked up and weaved her hand through mine.  One by one, they came to stand beside me: Xander and Lindsey, Dawnie and Dru, Tara, Willow, Anya, and Andrew.  After a moment, Wes came to stand beside them, straightening his glasses and clearing his throat.  He'd been surprisingly quiet during the whole ordeal, but even serious Wesley was there for me.

            They were on my side.  They were all on my side.

            The adults and older kids looked on, and all I could think about was the fact that I wasn't alone, and that, for once, I didn't have to be the strong one.  Tara squeezed my hand.  The rest of them could be strong for me.

            "Faith," Buffy said.

            I fought against the tears and lost.  "It doesn't matter," I muttered.

            "Yes, it does," she said, "and this time, you and I need to talk for real."

            "For real," Anya piped up.  "No faking it," she said.  "Faking orgasms takes the fun right out of them."

            Andrew regarded me solemnly.  "May the force be with you," he said, handing me a condom.  "I got it out of Riley's wallet.  His supply has not yet been depleted, perhaps because of an evil impotent shield of doom."  Andrew supplied his own echo.  "DOOM DOOM DOOM."

            "Impotent?" Riley squeaked, and I remembered that Sam was there, too.  I pushed back a grin, even as the tears slipped slowly down my face.  I wasn't even sure why I was crying.  I thought about my tombstone again, only this time, I saw a different message.

            _Faith Giles_

_            She loved us_

_            And we loved her._

            Andrew sniffled and wiped his nose on his shirt, muttering something about Riley needing to seek out the Elixer of Power and Potency hidden deep within the Viagara Forest.

            I loved that kid.

            They'd stood up for me, even Spike who still looked mad enough to spit nails about the car incident.  They'd all stood up for me, and now, the only thing left for me to do was talk to Buffy.

TBC… Sweet Buffy/Faith bonding time, as each figures out what the other has been going through and they discover that they're more alike than either of them had thought.

PLEASE REVIEW  


	12. Five by Five

DISCLAIMER: Joss and twentieth century fox own all.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here it is, the last chapter.  There may or may not be a sequel, largely depending on my muse (thought feedback never hurts).  I hope you've enjoyed the fic and the kids, as well as the complicated mess that is the Buffy/Faith relationship.  I've enjoyed writing it, and you've been a wonderful audience.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Twelve

            "Come on, Faith," Buffy said.  Not Faith Giles.  Just Faith.  She held her hand out to me.  For a moment, all I did was stare at it.

            "Maybe she's been frozen by the orgasmless pit of despair," Andrew whispered loudly when I didn't move.  

            I grinned.  I had to give it to the kid.  He was an original.  Andrew's words snapped me out of my stupor, and after a moment, I took Buffy's hand.

            "Do you need representation, Faith?" Lindsey asked me seriously.  "Or a friend?  Because it would be within the bounds of the law for me to do that for you."  Once Lindsey got into over-protective lawyer-brother mode, it was hard to snap him out of it.

            "Lindsey," Buffy said dryly, "she'll be fine."

            All of my brothers and sisters stared at her pointedly.  

            "Go on, Fire Bit," Spike said finally after giving Buffy a long, measuring look.  "Have the talk with big sis, eh?"

            I looked at Spike for a moment, and then I nodded.

            "Five by five," I said.  

            Buffy and I walked away from the others in silence, and she held onto my hand tightly.  She didn't hold it like she was afraid I was going to run away.  She held it like she was afraid to let go, of me, of the family.  Of us.

            Finally, when we were out of earshot, she sat down on the ground cross-legged, and I sat down next to her, saying nothing.

            "I didn't realize-" she started to say, but then she stopped and breathed in, measuring out her words.  "I didn't mean to…"

            "No sweat, B," I said, my tone cavalier.  "It happens."

            "No," Buffy said, her voice brimming with something I didn't quite understand.  "It doesn't happen.  Not to my sister.  Not by me."  She paused.  "It's just… I'm finally out on my own, and Mom and Dad uproot you all and move, and all I wanted was to have something that was just me, you know?  Something real.  Something outside of the crazy Giles household."  She paused.  "It was like all these years in the house, day after day, it was crisis after crisis, craziness on top of craziness, the world about to crumble down any second."

            "That's why we stick together," I said, staring down at the ground.  "Giles kid solidarity."

            Buffy nodded and bit her bottom lip.  "I know that, but it was time for me to go, to make my own life, and after all these years of crisis after crisis, apocalypse after apocalypse…"

            B always had been a bit dramatic.

            "I just wanted to be me.  Not the oldest.  Not a daughter, not a sister, not a savior.  Just me."  

            "Don't you get it, B?" I asked.  "You are you.  The sister, the fighter, that's who you are."  Everyone had always thought Buffy was so perfect.  It had never occurred to me that she might want to be someone else.

            Secretly, in my heart of hearts, I'd always wanted to be her.

            Buffy looked away and spoke again.  "And when you guys moved, and you all banded together, Giles kid solidarity and whatnot, I wasn't a part of that.  No whatnot for Buffy."  She looked down at the ground.  "None whatsoever.  No what-ing of the not."  She paused.  "I was on my own, but the family, our whole Giles world needed me, and it kept sucking me back in.  The harder I fought it, the more I came back, only I wasn't a part of anything anymore.  Not really."  She glanced away.

            I'd thought she'd left us, and she had, but I hadn't realized that she hadn't felt like she could come back.  She'd changed, and we'd changed, and she wasn't sure how she fit into the scheme of things anymore.

            "You grew up," I said, shrugging.  "It's not the end of the world, B."

            Once upon a time, to me, it had felt like the end of the world.

            "I grew up too fast," she said softly, "and when I came back, and saw the craziness that was our family, all I could think about was the fact that, no matter what I did or tried to do, I wasn't part of it anymore, at least not in the same way, so I decided to be a part of it in a new way."  She laughed under her breath, horribly sad laughter that made my stomach turn itself inside out.  

            "You thought you'd be the mom," I said, arching my eyebrows at her.  Sometimes, Buffy wasn't the brightest.

            "Mom was busy and things were crazy, and you guys needed me again."

            "We never stopped needing you," I said.  "Ever, Buffy."  I looked away.  I'd wanted to stop needing her so badly, wanted the others to stop needing her, too.  For a tense moment, there was silence, and when I looked back up at Buffy, it all came pouring out.  "They put Tara and Willow in different classes, and the mean boys make Tara cry every day, even when I punch them, and Xander almost poked his eye out doing a chandelier trick, and Riley's never happy anymore, and Cordy's always in the bathroom, and everyone teases Wesley…"  I took a deep breath.  "And Anya and Andrew don't have a playgroup here because of the whip cream incident and Lindsey tried to sue the school principle, and hell, B, no one even understands what Willow is talking about half the time."  

            "Is that about the it?" Buffy asked.

            I paused for a moment and thought.  "Dawnie can't decide whether she loves life or hates it and she's obsessed with our soccer coach, and Darla never leaves her alone for a single minute, and…" I trailed off as I thought of the candy bar Dawnie had stolen from the grocery store a few weeks ago.  She'd promised me she'd never do it again.  Even having a heart to heart with Buffy, I couldn't rat out my twin.  

            I looked up at Buffy.  "And I can't make it better," I finished, the tears spilling over my eyes.  "I keep trying and trying, but no matter what I do, they keep getting hurt, and I hate it."  I paused.  "I hate it."  My body practically shook with the vehemence in my voice as the tears streamed down my face.

            "Oh, Faith," Buffy said.  "Sweetie, you don't have to be everything to everyone."

            I looked at her through my tears.  "You were."  I'd finally said it, and saying it hurt so bad that my teeth ached.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't be Buffy, because I just wasn't good enough.

            "No, baby girl, I wasn't."  Buffy reached out and pulled me onto her lap, even though I was almost too big to fit.  I was nine, after all, and she was small for her age, but she held me tight, and despite myself, I cried bitterly into her shoulder.

            "You don't have to hold the world on your shoulders, Faith," she said.

            Not Faith Giles.  Just Faith.

            "I haven't been there for you," she said softly, and when I looked up, her cheeks were tear-stained as well.  "Not like I should have been.  All this time, I thought the only place for me once I moved out was as the girl in charge, but really…"  she swallowed hard.  "All this time, all you needed was a sister."

            "Damn ironic," I muttered without thinking.  "Since I already have so many."

            "Faith," Buffy said, and I got the distinct feeling that she was about to mention my language, but then she shrugged it off.  "Damn ironic," she agreed.  She hugged me to her, and hugging her, for that moment, life didn't seem so bad.

            "What about you?" she asked.  "Kids are teasing Tara and Wesley, Lindsey's gotten himself lawyered into and out of a dozen detentions, Xander's on the verge of losing appendages… what about you, Faith?"

            She was actually asking about me?  That was a first, even for nice, concerned, sisterly Buffy.

            "What about me?" I asked, my voice tough again.  I sniffled and cursed myself for ruining the effect.  "I'm the bad one," I said.  

            "No you're not," Buffy said.  "You're the leader.  There's a difference."

            I said nothing.

            "They look up to you, Faith, and whatever you say, they'll do," Buffy said.

            "And I suck at saying the right things," I said.

            "No," Buffy said, "but you do have a wicked sense of justice and only about an ounce of restraint."

            I conceded the point with a grin.  Across the parking lot, Angel was walking a pudding-covered Darla out to the car, Harmony trailing in their wake, asking very loudly about the pretty vagina tiara she wanted to wear so she could play Orgasm Princess when she got home.

            Buffy laughed despite herself, and I smiled through my tears.  "It wasn't me, you know," I said. "With the pudding.  Not that I wouldn't have, because the stupid bint deserved it…"

            "Bint?" Buffy asked wryly.

            I shrugged sheepishly.  "Spike," I said.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.

            All of a sudden, things were starting to get back to normal.  In a good way.

            "I'm sorry, Faith," Buffy said finally.  "All this time, I thought you were making with the acting out just because you could, when really, you were only doing what you had to do."  Buffy looked away. "Maybe part of me knew that," she admitted.  "Maybe part of me was afraid you'd do it a little too well."

            It took me a moment to process.  She'd been afraid that I was going to replace her?  I couldn't work my head around the idea.

            "Part of it was because I could," I said.  "You know, kind of a want, take, have kind of thing."   

            Buffy groaned.  I smirked.  

            Things were definitely getting back to normal.

            "You're a good kid," Buffy said.  "And I love you."

            I threw myself at her and hugged her fiercely.  "I love you, too," I said.  "Way too much to see you with a jerk like Parker," I added after a moment.

            Buffy grinned sheepishly.  "There's a small chance you might have been right about him," she said finally.  "Way with the small," she tacked on.

            I grinned.  She knew I had been right, and even if she wasn't going to admit it completely, that was all that mattered.

            "Want to go make sarcastic comments to Riley about the 'viagara forest' thing?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

            "Of course," Buffy replied without missing a beat.

            We walked back toward the group, and as we walked closer, I knew exactly what we were walking towards.  Chaos.

            "GRANDMUMMY!" Dru yelled across the parking lot to Darla.  "The pizza ate you, didn't it?  It ate you and threw you right back up, back up."  Dru twirled around, her arms held out and her dark pigtails flying.  

            Darla glared in her general direction before climbing into Angel's car.

            Dru looked back at the rest of us solemnly.  "That's what happens when you don't eat the pizza," she said.  She paused and her little eyes went spacey as she spun around faster, yelling out the words one by one with each turn.  "It.  Eats."  She smiled.  "You."

            "Quick, to the ejaculation booth!" Andrew said.

            "We will not give up our right to orgasm, sexless fiends!" Anya yelled to imaginary enemies.  

            "Feel the wrath of my orgy-lasers," Andrew said, making laser sounds as he swung a pretend light saber around.  "To infinity and beyond," he added.

            Anya leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

            Andrew nodded seriously, sniffed, and then corrected himself.  "To ecstasy and beyond!"

            I met Buffy's eyes and she smiled.

            "Did we come to an amenable conclusion?" Willow asked nervously, wringing her hands.

            Tara looked at me.  "Are you happy?" she asked sweetly.

            "Should I stick her with contempt of court?" Lindsey asked, still in over-protective brother mode.

            "Yes, yes, and no," I told them.  "I'm five by five."  

            I looked at Spike, who was grinning at the mess that was my family.  Buffy squeezed my shoulder.

            I looked back at Spike.  "We don't call it Pepe's House of Chaos with Cheese for nothing," I said.

            I looked at them, each one in turn.  When it came right down to it, they were what really mattered, and I was what mattered to them, too.

            Family.

Anya joined Andrew in yelling, and their words echoed throughout the parking lot.  "TO ECSTASY AND BEYOOOOOOONNNNNNND!"     

            And that was that.

THE END.

It's been fun writing for you all.  I hope you enjoyed.  Let me know what you think and what you'd like in any eventual sequels.

PLEASE REVIEW!


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